Off by a Single Degree
by Taaroko
Summary: AU, Damon/Elena. On the night that Elena meets Damon, her cell phone dies before she has a chance to call home for a ride. Their conversation is never interrupted by her parents' arrival, Elena and her parents are never in a car that goes off Wickery Bridge, and Stefan never has to save Elena from drowning. Enjoy and review!
1. Technical Difficulties

To all my _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ and _Robin Hood_ fanfic readers, I'm very sorry for the extremely long posting delay. I have the next chapter of "Season 9" partly written and the next chapter of "Truth" all planned out, but the final semester of my bachelor's program has been insanely busy, especially with all the grad school applications and everything. (I got in, by the way. I'll be starting my Master's in the fall, and I landed the graduate instructorship I needed to pay for it. Much rejoicing!) And on top of that, obviously, I've been distracted by a new fandom. This one. Which I avoided for the first three years of the show mainly because I thought the title sounded ridiculous. I should have learned my lesson about ridiculous-sounding titles with _Buffy_. VD is absolutely fantastic, and I'm glad I caved to all the peer pressure of friends and roommates trying to convince me to watch it.

Many of you in this fandom may already be familiar with me from "All This Time", the time travel fic I'm co-writing with AnglcDmn1986 (formerly known as TheLadyBlackDove200). She's working on her AU fic, "Cheap Guitars" as well now, and I've started writing this, and we're betaing each other.

Anyway, this story. Ever since I got to the S3 finale and saw the infamous "Elena meets Damon first" scene, I've been obsessed with the idea of what could've happened if he hadn't made her forget. I've read a few fics with that premise, but I wanted to explore the idea myself. I wondered what tiny detail unrelated to Damon's or Elena's actions I could tweak that would set things off, and killing Elena's cell phone before she could call a ride seemed like the simplest. So everything about the characters and the situation is exactly as it was the night of the bonfire, except that Elena's phone is dead. The characters will be completely themselves, so far as I am able to write them correctly, and the differences from canon will come from how they react to the snowball of changing circumstances.

Disclaimer: Obviously the show and characters aren't mine, or I would be writing the actual episodes, not fanfiction.

* * *

Elena had stormed far enough away from the bonfire that almost all of the sounds of music and laughter had faded from her ears by the time she was calm enough to slow her pace. She wasn't even sure why she had blown up at Matt like that; he hadn't said anything new. Maybe Bonnie was right. She had tried being more than friends with him, but it just wasn't working, and instead of telling him that like a reasonable person would, she was lashing out. Should she break up with him? She didn't think she could keep doing this, but the thought of losing him completely was not an appealing one.

She heaved a sigh and pulled out her cell phone. She'd tried to use it to call her parents for a ride home when she first left the party, only for the low battery sign to flash and the device to die seconds later. No doubt she would find about two hundred pictures of the inside of her pocket when she recharged it. Again.

With a groan of frustration, she hit the power button. She only needed it to stay on long enough to make one tiny call. Otherwise, she'd be facing two equally unappealing options: walking five miles alone in the dark to get home or returning to the bonfire and risking running into Matt again. "Come on, come on," she muttered. But though the screen did light up briefly, she couldn't make it dial before it died again. "Ugh, you've got to be kidding me." She shoved her phone back in her pocket and grimaced. A five-mile walk it would be. At least she was wearing decent shoes for it.

"Katherine."

Elena looked up in surprise; she'd thought there wasn't anyone else out here on this stretch of road. There certainly hadn't been a moment ago, but now an unfamiliar man was standing a few yards in front of her, staring at her as though he couldn't believe his eyes. "Um…no, I," she said, frowning and looking around to check that he hadn't been talking to someone behind her, but there was no one. "I'm Elena."

Whoever this guy was, he was absolutely gorgeous. She guessed he was probably somewhere in his early twenties. He wasn't particularly tall, but with his slightly tousled black hair, angular brows, and amazingly bright eyes, he nailed the "dark and handsome" parts. The black v-neck and leather jacket were definitely working for him too, and there was clearly some muscle tone going on underneath.

"Oh," he said, looking even more confused than she felt. "You…you just look…uh." He blinked and shook his head, then began to walk closer. "I'm sorry. You just _really_ remind me of someone." He stopped. "I'm Damon."

"Not to be rude or anything, Damon," said Elena, shifting her weight uncomfortably, "but it's kinda creepy that you're out here in the middle of nowhere."

"You're one to talk," he said lightly. "You're out here all by yourself."

"It's Mystic Falls," she said, gesturing at their surroundings, "nothing bad ever happens here."

He didn't reply to this, and his expression was inscrutable. She felt a sudden urge to explain what she was doing, so she jerked her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the bonfire. "Got into a fight with my boyfriend," she said.

"About what?" said Damon with interest, but he seemed to realize that this was a more personal question than was strictly proper for a twenty-second-old acquaintance, as he immediately held up his hands and added, "May I ask?"

Elena shook her head. "Life…future. He's got it all mapped out."

He looked at her shrewdly. "You don't want it?"

She shrugged. "I don't know what I want."

"Well that's not true," he said confidently. "You want what everybody wants."

Elena tilted her head and smiled a little. Was he flirting with her? "What?" she said, "A mysterious stranger who has all the answers?"

He chuckled and looked off to the side. "Well, let's just say I've been around a long time. I've learned a few things." He made a mock serious expression and nodded.

Amused, she decided to play along. "So, Damon, tell me. What is it that I want?"

He squinted at her, as if he'd be able to see the answer if he just looked close enough. "You want a love that consumes you," he said, taking a few more steps towards her as he spoke. "You want passion and adventure, and even a little danger."

He came to a stop barely two feet away from her. His eyes were amazing. The irises were light blue set off by darker blue rings at the edges and framed by thick, black lashes, and they seemed to hint at some vast, barely contained energy and a few dozen secrets at least. Elena was already starting to get lost in them. "So what do _you _want?" she said, trying to keep the banter going but unable to stop her voice from faltering slightly.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. She'd clearly taken him by surprise with her question. Soon enough, however, a charming smirk stole over his features. "Well, for now, I want to make sure that the lovely Miss Elena makes it to her destination." Before she quite realized what he was doing, he caught one of her hands and brought it up to his lips.

Elena felt herself blushing, and her smile widened into a grin. "I hope that means you have a car nearby, because it's a five mile walk to my house."

"Ah," he said, releasing her hand. "Phone die before you could call a ride?"

"Yep."

"I'd let you use mine, but like my car, it's back at my place, which is about a mile from here."

She let out a little laugh. "You mean you walked here?"

"It's pretty country," he said, shrugging. "Besides, the exercise can't hurt," he added with a wink. He stepped to the side and swept an arm out in the direction she'd been walking before he turned up. "Shall we?"

She smiled at him again. "I guess I'll just have to channel my inner Elizabeth Bennet," she sighed as they started walking. "After all," she went on in her best British accent, "what is one mile of good road? A very easy distance, I should think. Certainly easier than five."

Damon laughed. "If you're Elizabeth, then who does that make me?"

"I'll let you know," said Elena slyly. He was no Mr. Collins, that much was obvious.

For a minute or two, they walked in amiable silence. Every ten seconds or so, Elena would sneak a glance at Damon, her blush and his smirk returning whenever he caught her in the act. They were just about to start across Wickery Bridge when he asked, "You wouldn't happen to be related to any Pierces, would you?"

She frowned. "I don't think so," she said uncertainly. "My last name is Gilbert and my mom's maiden name is Sommers, so if I am, I guess it's more distant than that."

"Gilbert, huh? As in one of the renowned founding families of Mystic Falls?"

She smiled. "Yeah, actually. My parents are really into that stuff. How do you know about it?"

"Well I'm a Salvatore," said Damon, splaying a hand over his chest. "I haven't spent a whole lot of time in town lately, but I've got as much family history here as you. There's a good chance my uncle Zach knows your parents."

"Wow," said Elena. Whatever small amount of unease she might have felt about agreeing to get a ride home from a virtual stranger was gone at this revelation. "Yeah, he's friends with my dad. I never knew he had a nephew."

"He's not one to brag," said Damon, shooting her a cocky smirk, at which she grinned and rolled her eyes. "But he has two nephews, actually."

"You mean you have a brother?"

"Yep. He's a few years younger than me. Still stuck in that brooding, tortured teen phase. You wouldn't like him."

Elena giggled. "Is he in town too?" she asked.

Damon shrugged. "Couldn't tell you. We had kind of a falling out. Haven't seen him in a while."

On the surface, his attitude seemed indifferent, but Elena thought she could hear something else in his tone. "I'm sorry," she said.

"You don't even know the circumstances," said Damon. Now he sounded amused. She got the impression that he didn't believe she could actually care about his relationship with his brother.

"Well I know I wouldn't like being on the outs with my little brother," she said. "Jeremy can be a major pain in the butt sometimes, but I love him. We don't spend as much time together as when we were little kids, but still…."

"Stefan and I were best friends when we were kids," said Damon. There was definitely a wistful edge to his tone now.

"What changed?" said Elena. She glanced over at him in time to see a rueful smirk slide over his features.

"What else? We fell for the same girl."

"That doesn't sound like fun," said Elena with a wince.

"Oh, it wasn't, believe me."

"You two fought over her?"

"We would have, if either of us had known that she was dating us both at the same time."

"She was sneaking around behind your backs?" Elena gasped. How could anyone do that? Especially to a pair of brothers?

"By the time we realized what she'd been doing, it was too late to do anything about it."

"What do you mean?" said Elena, pulled out of her thoughts of what kind of woman would be so heartless as to string two brothers along like that.

"There was a fire," said Damon. "She didn't make it out."

"Oh my God, that's so awful," said Elena quietly. "Are you okay?" she asked, reaching out and touching his arm.

He stopped walking and looked down at the fingers brushing the sleeve of his jacket. She let them fall back to her side and watched his face closely. His eyes met hers, and she perceived in him once again a disbelief that she could care so much about the troubles of someone she had only just met. "It was a while ago," he said.

It was obvious to her that whatever this girl had done to him and his brother, he had been very much in love with her. He stuck his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans and started walking again. Elena followed suit, trying to think of a more neutral topic to discuss. "So why would you think I'm related to any Pierces?" she said, remembering his earlier question. "Was it about the girl I remind you of?"

"Katherine," he supplied. "And you don't just remind me of her, you could be her twin. It's kinda freaky."

"Well, they do say everyone has a double," said Elena, trying to shake off the unsettled feeling she got at the idea. But then she looked around at Damon sharply as something clicked together in her brain. "She's _the_ girl, isn't she?"

"The girl who wrapped me and Stefan around her little finger?" he said. "Yep. That was Katherine."

Elena fell silent as she considered all of this.

"I thought I'd run into her ghost when I saw you," he went on, some of that bewilderment he'd shown in those first few moments coming back into his voice. "But I can already tell that the similarities pretty much end with looks."

"Really?" said Elena. She was surprised that he wanted to keep talking about anything Katherine-related. Maybe he'd just never had a chance to before. "What was she like?"

"Very selfish, crafty, and manipulative—all of which I'm sure you already worked out—but also very…fun, confident, and unpredictable. I'd never met anyone like her before." There was a soft, faraway look in his eyes, but then it dimmed into something much more solemn. "I'd do anything to get her back."

"Even after everything with your brother?"

"Stefan hated her after he found out the truth, but I got past it. If I had another chance to be with her, I'd take it in a heartbeat."

Elena was still a little incredulous of the idea that he could forgive Katherine and love her so much in spite of everything, but even if it didn't make sense to her, she could see that he was sincere. "I'm sorry you lost her," she said.

He looked around at her with an eyebrow raised. "Come on, we met less than twenty minutes ago. If you keep saying stuff like that, I might start to believe that you actually care."

"Well maybe I do," she said, ramming him playfully with her shoulder. "Don't be so cynical. Is it really such a crazy thought?"

"Maybe not," he said, shoving her back, his eyes dancing. "I just haven't seen a lot of it. People are usually too wrapped up in themselves to give a crap about anyone else."

She shook her head, still grinning, and shot him a look that he didn't miss.

"Oh, no, I saw that," he said, waving a finger at her warningly.

"Saw what?" she asked innocently.

"You're about to make it your personal mission to restore my faith in humanity," he accused.

She let her mouth fall open in mock indignation. "I am not."

"Well that's good," he said with a pompous little nod that had her suppressing another giggle. "Because I'm a lost cause."

"You don't believe that," Elena scoffed. She was rapidly losing her ability to treat this conversation like a joke.

Damon chuckled. "Sure I do. I've known me a lot longer than you have."

"Okay, so advantage Damon on that, but it doesn't automatically mean you're right. Give me a chance to prove it to you."

He stopped walking for a second time. "You sure you want to start down that road?" he said, piercing her through with the full intensity of his gaze. His voice dropped to something that was nearly a growl. "What if you find dangers there? Dangers you never thought were possible."

His eyes flared slightly and her pulse quickened. She was visited by the fleeting thought that maybe the secrets those eyes promised were frightening, dark, and disturbing things that ought to remain secret, but she immediately dismissed the idea as ridiculous. "I thought you said danger was what I wanted," she said, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

Whatever he'd expected from her, it obviously hadn't been that. He goggled at her for a few seconds before starting to laugh—a real laugh that set his eyes alight and changed the shape of his face to make him even more gorgeous than he already was. Despite the funny things that was doing to her insides, Elena beamed in triumph.

"I like you, Elena Gilbert," said Damon decisively as they started walking again. "And you've got a deal, just don't say I didn't warn you."

"Fair enough," said Elena wryly. "So what kind of time frame am I working with here?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are you just visiting your uncle, or are you in Mystic Falls to stay?"

"Oh, I'll be here at least a few months." He shot her a sideways look. "Think that'll be long enough to cure me of my anti-social tendencies?"

"Should be," she said.

"You're very confident for someone who just met me."

"And you're very easy to talk to for someone who claims to be incurably anti-social."

Damon laughed again. "Maybe I'm the one who should get out while I still can."

"Nope," said Elena. "Too late for that. You already agreed to the deal."

"Oh well," he said. "Have you figured out which character I am yet?" She frowned and was on the verge of asking him what he was talking about when he raised a warning finger at her and added, "If you tell me I'm Elizabeth's repulsive cousin, the deal is off."

"Oh yeah!" she said, remembering. "_Pride and Prejudice_." She cast him a thoughtful look, and a grin slowly formed on her face. "I don't know. I think it's a toss-up between Mr. Bingley and Colonel Fitzwilliam."

"No, not them!" Damon cried, clutching dramatically at his chest and turning his head away in a grimace as though she'd wounded him.

"I don't see why not," laughed Elena. "Elizabeth got along famously with both of them."

"It still doesn't fit," said Damon. "Bingley is a spineless puppy and I distinctly remember that Fitzwilliam is _not_ handsome. I'm not settling for anything less than Darcy or Wickham."

"Well then you'll just have to wait a while longer for me to figure it out," said Elena, eyebrows raised and nose in the air. Damon definitely had a bad boy vibe, so she could see why he'd like the idea of being Wickham, but she didn't want to cast him as the villain. And as much as the idea of him as Darcy made her heartbeat speed up, she reminded herself forcefully that under all the jokes and banter, he was still mourning his girlfriend—a situation made even more complicated by the fact that said girlfriend happened to look just like her. She would not let herself go there. He needed a friend, not a rebound girl.

After a few more minutes, they arrived at the Salvatore boarding house. Elena had seen the place a few times—there wasn't much in Mystic Falls she hadn't seen—but she'd forgotten how huge and old it was.

"Doesn't look like anyone's home," said Elena, observing all the darkened windows.

"I think Zach had some errands to run," said Damon. "Anyway, it's probably a little late for the tour, so if you just want to wait out here, I'll run in and grab my keys and pull my car around."

"Okay," said Elena, smiling.

He was back before she had a chance to feel nervous about where she was, driving a light blue convertible, some kind of classic, around to where she stood waiting on the front drive. She was about to get in on her own when he hopped out and quickly walked around to open her door for her. The old-fashioned gesture made her smile. Matt did stuff like that all the time, too, as did her dad, and her mom was currently attempting to drill it into Jeremy.

"So," he said once he was back inside the car. "Where am I taking you?"

She rattled off the directions to her house, and off they went. For some reason, the ride felt more awkward than the walk had been. Elena suddenly became aware of the possibility that she might have inconvenienced him with this little adventure, and was determined to make up for it. "So, uh," she said when they were about three quarters of the way there, "You pretty much rescued me tonight. Think I could return the favor by buying you dinner sometime?"

"Return the favor?" he scoffed, and immediately the weird tension was broken. "Elena, I'd never turn down an offer for free dinner, but if you're gonna make this about keeping score, then you'd better be prepared to lose. I'm _very _competitive."

Elena grinned. "Challenge accepted."

"Well, I've already warned you about me once, but I'll give you another chance," he said, and he pulled out his phone, which he must've grabbed when he went in for his keys, and tossed it to her. "So either put yourself in my contacts or don't. I won't check my phone until I'm back home."

Elena rolled her eyes and flipped open the phone. "Nice background picture," she snickered. It was a photo of his car.

"Hey, this car is my baby," he said. "What else would I use as my background picture?"

Maybe a picture of Katherine, she thought, but said nothing as she found his contact list. It was extremely short, not even taking up the entire screen. The only names on it were Bree, Lexi, Stefan, Will, and Zach. She had barely finished putting her number in when Damon pulled up in front of her house. Once again, he managed to get out and around the car to open her door before she could so much as reach for the handle. He then proceeded to hand her out as though it was a carriage rather than a car, and she giggled when he used his grip on her hand to spin her around.

"Why thank you," she said.

"The pleasure was all mine," he replied cheekily, bending to kiss the back of her hand like he'd done when they first embarked on their journey.

"And thanks again for the rescue," she said more seriously as she handed back his phone. "See you soon?"

He smirked. "It's a definite possibility."

X

Just as Elena was closing the front door behind her, her mom walked into the hall, carrying an empty popcorn bowl. "Elena!" she said, surprised. "You're back early; it's not even nine yet."

Elena shrugged. "Matt and I got into a fight," she said. "I didn't want to stay after that." Somehow this wasn't as troubling to her as it had been half an hour ago.

"You could've called us," said her mom as they both headed into the kitchen. "We would've picked you up."

"Hey, Elena!" chorused her dad, Jeremy, and Jenna briefly from where they sat around the Pictionary easel, before they returned their attention to the game.

"I tried," said Elena, rolling her eyes, "but my phone died." She pulled the offending device out of her pocket.

Her mom frowned. "You didn't walk the whole way back, did you?"

"No. I started to, but then I ran into this guy—did you know Zach Salvatore has nephews?"

Her mom's hands, busy pouring more kernels into the popcorn maker, froze. "Really?" she said. "I had no idea."

"Yeah," said Elena, hopping up to sit on the counter. "I ran into the older one, Damon. We ended up walking to the Salvatore boarding house because it was closer, and then he drove me home." Her brow furrowed when she caught sight of her mom's face. "Mom, are you okay?" she said.

Miranda's face was white as a sheet, but she didn't seem to have heard the question.

"Mom?"

"What?" said Miranda. "Oh, I'm fine, sweetie. There's just something I'm going to need to discuss with your dad, is all."

"Elena!" Jenna called. "I could really use your help over here!"

"Hey, no teams!" Jeremy protested.

Elena laughed, hopped down, kissed her mom on the cheek, and went to join the game.

X

The last few years had been fairly uneventful for Zach Salvatore—almost uneventful enough for him to relax and pursue as normal of a life as he could. But not quite. There was still and would always be the threat of his uncles, which was why he had severed any social connections outside the Founders' Council, why he was secretly growing a crop of vervain in the cellar of the boarding house, and why even the slightest sound was always enough to rouse him from sleep at night. Consequently, when the sound of the front door opening reached his ears where he stood making dinner in the kitchen, he was immediately on high alert. When the intruder revealed himself a second later to be his uncle Stefan, he did not relax.

"Zach," said Stefan. "I hope I didn't startle you. I wasn't sure you'd be here."

"What are you doing here, Uncle Stefan?" Zach asked warily. His gaze was drawn to the small, dark stain on the collar of Stefan's shirt.

"Just passing through," said Stefan. "I wanted to see how things are in Mystic Falls, see how you are."

"All good," said Zach curtly. He was relieved to hear that his uncle didn't plan to stay long. He swallowed. "What about Uncle Damon?"

"I haven't seen my brother in fifteen years," said Stefan, his expression a mixture of anger and sadness. "He could be on the other side of the world for all I know."

Zach nodded stiffly. Stefan finally seemed to realize what was bothering him. "Oh," he said, raising a hand to touch the spot on his collar. "It's from a deer, Zach, I swear. I've just been out hunting in the woods. It's been decades since I fed from a human."

His eyes were wide and earnest, and after a few seconds, Zach relaxed. "Good to know," he said with a feeble smile.

"Well," said Stefan, "if there's nothing you'd like me to do for you, I'm going to head out now. Don't hesitate to contact me if something comes up." Zach blinked, and Stefan was gone, leaving behind a slip of paper bearing his cell number on the counter. It was the same number Zach already had. Perhaps Stefan assumed Zach had lost it after five years without a word from him, but the silence had been very deliberate.

X

Damon returned his car to the spot where he'd parked it around the back of the boarding house, just deep enough into the woods that Zach wouldn't be able to spot it from inside. Then, forgoing the use of a door, he simply jumped directly through his open bedroom window. Zach must've finished those errands in the last fifteen minutes; Damon could hear him moving around somewhere downstairs. However, he quickly tuned out the sound. So long as his great-great-great-great-great half-nephew's activities didn't intersect or interfere with his own, he couldn't care less about them. Particularly not when there was something much more intriguing to occupy his thoughts.

Elena Gilbert. Damon was fascinated. How could someone look and sound so much like Katherine and yet be completely different? If she'd looked like anyone else, she'd be wandering around in a daze right about now, lightheaded from blood loss and none the wiser. Well, that or she'd be dead, her body buried in the woods.

The thought of drinking from her had still occurred to him on and off as they walked to the boarding house, but for the first time in years—maybe even decades—, he'd sincerely been enjoying a conversation with another person, and he hadn't wanted it to end. Sure, there had been the lighter moments of flirtatious banter, and he'd heard the spike in her vital signs in response to him at multiple points, but she'd been so…_genuine_ the whole time.

That had been particularly surprising, considering who she resembled. At one point, it had almost been too much. A few minutes walking side-by-side and she'd already been trying to pry into feelings he hadn't allowed to surface in lifetimes, and there had been a moment when he'd wanted to kill her for it. He'd wanted to show her what he was, terrify that well-meaning sympathy out of her, and drain her dry.

But then she'd tossed his earlier words back at him, catching him so off-guard that his murderous intent had vanished as if it had never been.

He hadn't been lying when he told her he liked her. He did. Too much, probably. If he'd been smart, he would've wiped her memory of meeting him. She was a Gilbert, after all. Her parents were bound to be a part of that damn council, and yet he'd allowed her to skip off home with her knowledge of him intact. But what did it really matter? Whether Mama and Papa Gilbert were Council members or not, nobody in Mystic Falls except Zach knew what Damon was, and he'd made certain years ago that Zach was very aware of how much his survival depended on keeping that secret.

Yeah, it would all be fine. There were only a few months left before the comet returned and he finally, _finally_ got Katherine back. With Elena's company, those last few months might not pass quite so agonizingly slowly. And, it would probably be easier to get that crystal back with the help of a current Mystic Falls native. Once the time was up, he'd get Bree over here, pop open the tomb, and ride off with Katherine into the sunset. How complicated could that possibly get?

X

Jenna picked her way around the living room, dropping escape popcorn kernels back into the empty bowl and gathering up throw pillows and replacing them on the sofas as she went. Typical of the aftermath of Family Night, the room looked like ground zero of a small tornado, and naturally Jeremy and Elena had disappeared upstairs without doing much in the way of tidying up. And as Grayson and Miranda were working on cleaning the kitchen together, she, Jenna, was left to straighten up the living room.

She glanced over her shoulder at her sister and brother-in-law, but her snarky remark about the rudeness of sticking houseguests with cleanup duty caught in her throat at the sight of their very serious profiles and rigid postures. She frowned and continued tidying up, wondering what that was about.

A few minutes later, shortly after Jenna heard the dishwasher start up, Grayson and Miranda both joined her in the now mostly clean living room.

"Jenna," said Miranda, "before you go to bed, there's something Grayson and I need to talk to you about."

Jenna's insides twisted with anxiety; she couldn't remember her sister ever using such a grave tone before. "What's wrong?" she said.

"Let's all sit down," said Grayson, taking his wife's hand and moving over with her to the couch. Jenna reluctantly sank onto the adjacent loveseat, watching them.

For a second, it seemed that neither of them knew where to begin, but then Miranda said, "Do you remember all those stories I used to tell you?"

Jenna looked from her to Grayson and back again in confusion. "What, you mean the vampire stories?"

* * *

So in case it wasn't clear, no, Stefan did not see Elena. He will be out of town until someone calls him back. Also, Grayson has access to all of the Gilbert journals, which is why he and Miranda know what Damon is. And if you recall from S3, Abby Bennett initially left Mystic Falls after doing the spell to desiccate Mikael because he came looking for the doppelgänger—which means that Miranda and Grayson also know all about the Originals and Elena's role in the ritual that would break Klaus's curse. They actually know much more than Damon does. I'm pretty sure the only thing none of them knows is that Katherine isn't in the tomb. Isobel and Anna are the only ones who know that. *rubs hands together* This should be fun.


	2. Show, Don't Tell

Dang, does my muse like this story. I didn't expect to have another—not to mention longer—chapter for you in barely over a week.

Cheers and lots of hugs go to AnglcDmn1986 for letting me bounce ideas off her even though she's still not feeling so great.

* * *

Elena woke the next morning feeling more invigorated and purposeful than she had in a long time. She bounced out of bed, threw her window open, took a deep breath of the fresh spring air, and turned on her radio before starting to get ready for the day. Most of the songs that played were ones she knew by heart, and she danced and sang along loud, proud, and off-key as she got dressed, put her hair up in a messy bun, and packed her gym bag for cheer practice. The final chords of "Big Black Horse and a Cherry Tree" were fading out as she slipped her journal into her bag, grabbed her purse containing car keys and freshly recharged phone, and left her room.

She was still singing, "No, no, you're not the one for me," as she bounded down the stairs and into the kitchen, where she found her mom and aunt sitting at the island, halfway through cups of tea.

"Morning!" she said, dropping her stuff by the counter. "Where's Dad?"

"He had to take the car into the shop. There was something wrong with the steering," said Miranda, pouring a third cup of tea and handing it to her. "Jeremy up yet?"

"It's barely nine," said Elena, taking a sip. "If he was, it'd be a sign of the apocalypse."

At this, Jenna let out a shrill, almost hysterical laugh. Elena frowned at her aunt as she pulled out two slices of bread from the bag on the counter and put them in the toaster. Meanwhile, Miranda reached over to touch her sister's arm.

"Sorry," said Jenna, placing her hand over Miranda's and squeezing, her eyes on her mug. "Ignore me."

Elena took another drink of her tea, rolling it over her tongue in an attempt to identify the unfamiliar flavor. "This isn't what we usually have, is it?"

"No," said Miranda, smiling. "I thought I'd shake things up. Do you like it?"

"It's okay," said Elena, setting the cup on the counter and turning to the fridge to get out the butter and the raspberry jam.

"What was that you were singing?" Miranda asked.

"Oh, just what was on the radio," said Elena. She snorted. "Funny coincidence."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," said Elena. "You heard the words, right?" Both sisters nodded. Elena took a deep breath and closed her eyes tight. "I'm gonna break up with Matt today."

"Wait, what?" said Jenna. "When did this happen? What did I miss?"

"This is what you get for living on campus when you could just stay here rent-free," said Miranda dryly, before directing a very motherly look at Elena. "What went wrong?"

Elena shrugged and sipped her tea to give herself thinking time. "It was fine when we were just dating and having fun, I guess—actually it was a lot like when we were just friends, only with hand-holding and kissing and stuff, which is probably why it felt so comfortable, but lately…." She broke off with a sigh. The toast popped, and she got it out and started buttering it. "I went into it just to see if it could be more, you know? But I think he always wanted it to be. And now he keeps talking about all this big picture future stuff like marriage and kids."

"You know he doesn't really care about any of that yet," said Miranda gently. "He's just trying to figure out how you feel about him right now."

"Then I guess it worked," said Elena. Whatever remained of her happy mood was gone. She looked at her mom with pleading eyes. "Is it selfish of me to want to back out?"

"Oh, no, honey," said Miranda, her face full of concern. "I know Matt means a lot to you, but if you try to force feelings that aren't there, it'll only hurt both of you more down the road. Do you think you'll ever feel the same way he does?"

Elena bit her lip and shook her head.

"Then staying together wouldn't be fair to either of you. You should each be with someone you can love the same way they love you."

"What if he doesn't want to go back to being just friends? He's been there my whole life. I don't want to lose him."

"You're not going to lose him," said Miranda. "You're setting him free."

Elena considered this while she ate her toast. By the time she was halfway through the second slice, she felt slightly better about it all.

"Why are you all ready to head out so early?" said Jenna. "I thought practice wasn't until the afternoon. Or has that changed too since the last time I visited?"

"Mmph," said Elena, waving her hand. She finished chewing her last bite of toast and swallowed, then washed it down with the rest of her tea. "No, it is, I just wanted to spend a few hours at the library."

"Working on your story some more?" asked Miranda with interest.

"I'm still not sure how I feel about you basing a character off of me," said Jenna.

"Oh, come on, she's not really you," said Elena, rolling her eyes. "Just because it's about two sisters growing up in small town Virginia doesn't mean it's you and Mom."

"Yeah, sure," said Jenna. "I'm still gonna expect royalties when you get this thing published and become the next Beverly Cleary."

"Hey, if I'm that successful, I'll give you the royalty anyway," said Elena, setting her mug in the sink.

"Well have fun," said Miranda, walking over to give her a kiss on the cheek. "And call me after you talk to Matt. I'll want to make sure you're not being too hard on yourself."

Elena let out a shaky laugh as she gathered her stuff and pulled out her keys. "See you later."

X

Having been side-tracked on his hunt the previous night, Damon made up for it first thing in the morning. He could've fed off Zach's maid, but that would tip Zach off to his presence a little sooner than he'd like. Besides, it seemed like she was actually good at her job. The boarding house was spotless, and considering Damon's relatively good mood, he felt more inclined to sneak her a tip than use her as a meal. So instead, he went about a mile away and caught a leggy, twenty-something blonde out for an early run on deserted back roads near the city limits. She survived the encounter and jogged away memory free, with no noticeable signs of damage other than the wobbliness of her gait, and with instructions to wash the blood off her neck before anyone else saw her.

As much as Damon resented the people of Mystic Falls for what their ancestors had done, he wouldn't risk raising anyone's suspicions by causing a string of mysterious injuries, deaths, or missing persons in the area—at least, not until he got what he came for. Then he'd leave it to Katherine to decide the town's fate. If she wanted to burn it all to the ground when he freed her from the tomb, he'd gladly set the fire himself.

When he got back to his room, he noticed his cell phone still sitting where he'd left it on a chair the night before. He picked it up, but hesitated. After a good night's sleep and a decent meal, he was having second thoughts about the wisdom of staying in contact with Elena Gilbert. The urge to play it safe was fleeting, however. He was already erring much farther on the side of caution than he usually did with his feeding habits; what could this hurt?

He flipped the phone open and went to his contacts list. It was very short, with just Bree, Lexi, Stefan, Will, and Zach on it. Of those, the only two he had any good reason for keeping track of were Bree and Will. He made a point of always knowing Lexi's current contact info, no matter how hard she tried to keep it from him—there was nothing quite as funny as the sound of the line going dead with a crunch every time she realized who was on the other end. He had Stefan's number for similar reasons, and every now and then, Damon liked to call up his nephew just to make sure he wasn't getting too comfortable.

At first glance, there didn't appear to be any new names on the list, and for one second (during which he felt more disappointed than he would ever have cared to admit), Damon thought Elena might have actually taken that out he'd given her in the car. But then he realized what she'd done and let out a delighted laugh.

He did have a new contact, listed right below Bree: "Cynicism Detox Hotline."

X

Elena smiled and waved at the librarians behind the desk of the Mystic Falls Public Library as she passed them, and they both greeted her cheerfully by name. This early in the day, there were only a handful of patrons scattered throughout the place. Elena's favorite study spot, a cluster of armchairs near the young adult section, was completely deserted. Upon reaching it, she tossed her purse on the little table in the middle of all the chairs, curled up in the blue chair that faced the rest of the library, and opened her journal.

She'd only written about another page of the adventures of Danni and Laura Benson when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and looked at the screen. The sight of the unfamiliar number attached to the text made her grin.

"_What are you up to today?"_ it read.

Before responding, she pulled the number and saved it in her contacts as Damon Salvatore. Then she hit the reply button and tapped out: "_Writing at the library, cheer practice at school, and then breaking up with my boyfriend."_ After a quick check for errors, she hit send.

His reply came seconds later, and she just knew he'd been smirking as he typed it.

_"Breaking up with him, huh? I thought you said it was just a fight. Or is it that I've already ruined you for other men?"_

Elena snorted. _"You got me,"_ she typed._ "I've fallen madly in love with you. Where should we meet so we can elope to Vegas?"_

She imagined she could hear his laughter when she read his next reply. _"You, Elena Gilbert, are rapidly becoming my favorite human being."_

_"Ooh! Can I put that on a button for my school bag? 'Damon Salvatore's Favorite Human Being'"_

_"Yeah, right next to your 'Mrs. Salvatore' button. What was that about eloping to Vegas?"_

Elena rolled her eyes and stretched out a little more in her chair, putting her feet up on the table. _"Ask me again when I'm eighteen. I think my parents might object before then. In the meantime, when can I buy you dinner to thank you for the big rescue last night?"_

_ "Still determined to keep score, are you?"_

_ "Well, there's that, but maybe you're also fun to hang out with. :P"_

_ "Okay, how about tonight? Won't you be needing comfort food and a shoulder to cry on by then, anyway?"_

_ "Hopefully not, but do you have any food preferences?"_

_ "Nope. Just as long as it's takeout."_

_ "Okay, I can pick something up from the Grill. We eating at your place or mine?"_

_ "I wouldn't be intruding on family dinner or anything if it was at your place, would I?"_

_ "No, Saturday night is always my parents' date night, so they won't be home. And my aunt's in town this weekend, but she can't cook to save her life, so she and Jeremy'll probably just get a pizza or something."_

_ "What time?"_

_ "How about 7?"_

X

Elena discovered very quickly that cheering with enough enthusiasm to satisfy Caroline Forbes is a difficult thing to do when your mind is busy rehearsing possible breakup speeches, especially with the football team scrimmaging a couple hundred feet away. Somehow, she managed to pull it together enough that Caroline didn't _quite_ get irritated enough to insist she sit the rest of practice out, but she was still glad when it ended and she no longer had to keep a huge fake smile plastered on her face.

"Okay, girls," said Caroline, clapping her hands together when they finished going through the last routine, "we've already made it through tryouts for the varsity squad, but unless we step it up—," here, she looked pointedly at Elena, "—we could still lose our spots. Just because these are the last few practices of the year does _not_ mean we get to slack off." She beamed her brightest Caroline smile at them, which Elena found more threatening than encouraging. "So! I'll see all of you first thing Monday morning."

As the other girls on the squad headed off to the locker rooms, laughing and chatting together in twos and threes, Elena hung back to gather up her phone and water bottle where she'd stashed them in the grass a few yards from where they'd been practicing. She checked her phone and frowned when she saw that there were no new texts.

"So, want to tell me why your spot on the squad is in danger?" came Bonnie's voice from behind her, her dry tone making it clear she thought Caroline's warning had been a little melodramatic.

Elena turned around and offered her best friend a weary smile.

"Is it Matt?" said Bonnie.

Elena nodded.

Bonnie reached out to touch her shoulder. "Did something happen at the bonfire last night?"

Elena rolled her eyes. "Nothing that hasn't happened before," she muttered.

Bonnie's eyes widened. "You're gonna break up with him, aren't you?"

"Yeah," said Elena. She tried to summon the resolve and confidence she sorely needed, but failed miserably. "I am."

"_What?!_" said a loud voice right next to them, making them both jump. It was Caroline. She had her own water bottle in one hand and the little blue boom box they used to practice their routines tucked under the other arm. "You're breaking up with Matt? But you two are like Mystic Falls High's golden couple!"

Elena grimaced and checked her phone again so she wouldn't have to reply to that immediately. Her inbox was still empty. Bonnie, clearly sensing Elena's discomfort—not that Elena was being subtle about it—stepped up. "Caroline…," she said.

"What?" said Caroline. "I can't be surprised when one of my _best friends_ decides out of the blue to dump her boyfriend?" She looked at Elena. "So what happened?"

"It's been building up for a while, I guess," said Elena, shifting restlessly on her feet. "I think it only worked as long as it did because we were coasting on a combination of his feelings and mass validation from everyone else thinking we're so great together. Plus, I kind of loved the idea of living out the childhood sweethearts ideal."

"I'm still not seeing the problem," said Caroline as the three of them started walking in the direction of the school.

"Well, there's no passion," said Elena. Or adventure or danger, added a little voice in her head that sounded remarkably like Damon's, but she shoved that thought aside. "There never has been. We're supposed to be boyfriend and girlfriend, but I feel just the same about him as I always have."

"Which is…?" said Caroline.

"That he's my friend, but I'm not in love with him." She checked her phone again (still no new texts), and when she looked up, she was surprised to see Bonnie smiling. "What?" she said as they reached the doors.

"You said it," said Bonnie as the three of them filed inside. "Yesterday you said you didn't know what you feel, but now you do. That means you're ready to do this."

Elena found herself returning the smile. "Yeah," she said. "I think I am."

"I'm proud of you," said Bonnie. "I thought it would take you much longer." She raised an eyebrow in an affectionate sort of way.

"What do you mean?" said Elena.

Caroline snorted. "Come on, Elena," she said. "You're not exactly the most decisive girl we know."

Elena frowned. Not because she was offended, although for a split second it had occurred to her to be. "I probably would've taken longer, but I kinda had help."

"Who from?" said Caroline. "The whole school—practically the whole town—has been planning you and Matt's happily ever after from the second you agreed to go on a _date_ date with him."

Bonnie shot Caroline a repressive look that did just about as much good as it ever did with her. They reached the door to the girls' locker room, but didn't go inside.

"I talked to Mom and Aunt Jenna about it this morning, and they were really supportive," said Elena. "Mom said that if I can't feel the same way he feels, then staying together isn't good for either of us."

"She's right," said Bonnie.

"I know," said Elena, though her stomach still squirmed and writhed with guilt. "But talking about it and actually doing it are two completely different things." She checked her phone again. Still nothing. What wouldn't she give for a little of Damon's humor right now? If she could just laugh about something, she'd feel so much braver about what she had to do.

"Why do you keep checking your phone?" said Caroline suspiciously.

"No reason," said Elena, but Caroline wasn't going to give up that easily. Before Elena could do anything to stop her, Caroline had shifted her water bottle to her boom box laden arm and snatched the phone out of her hands.

"Hey!" Elena protested, trying to get it back while Caroline danced backwards out of reach.

"Caroline, cut it out," said Bonnie.

At last, Elena managed to steal it back, but the damage was done. "Who's Damon Salvatore and what's happening at seven?" asked Caroline in a teasing voice. "Is he the real reason you're breaking up with Matt?"

"No," said Elena, shoving her phone into her pocket and scowling indignantly at Caroline. "He gave me a ride home last night after the bonfire when I was stranded with a dead phone, so I'm buying him dinner tonight as a thank you."

"Oh, please," said Caroline. "You just _happen_ to meet this hot guy and the next day you're breaking up with Matt and having dinner with said hot guy?"

"I didn't say he was hot," said Elena. She could feel heat rising in her cheeks.

"You didn't have to," said Caroline. "He can't have a name like Damon Salvatore and not be hot."

"_Is_ he hot?" muttered Bonnie on Elena's other side, clearly fighting a smile.

"You guys!" Elena burst out in frustration. "That is so _not_ the point. Even if I wanted dinner tonight to be more than a thank you, I'm not going to go there. His girlfriend died in a _fire_, and he's still grieving, okay?"

Bonnie's face filled with sympathy, but Caroline was undeterred. "Well maybe he just needs someone to comfort him," she said slyly.

"_No_," said Elena, who was starting to feel very annoyed now. "What he _needs_ is a good friend. Besides, the girlfriend who died? Apparently I look just like her, so the last thing I want is to be his weird twin replacement girl."

"Whoa," said Bonnie. "That's kinda creepy."

"I know, right?" said Elena. "How does that even happen?"

"Whatever," said Caroline, pulling the door to the locker room open. The other two followed her through it. "I still say that you meeting Damon and wanting to break up with Matt even though it's going to shatter that big, sweet heart of his into a thousand pieces are _not_ two entirely unrelated things."

"Caroline!" said Bonnie sharply as Elena's expression crumpled. "We're supposed to be being supportive." The main part of the locker room was deserted; all the other girls had already gone to the showers.

"This _is_ supportive," Caroline insisted. They all reached their lockers and started working the combinations. "Elena has to be able to be realistic about the repercussions of this breakup."

"Thanks, Caroline," said Elena, pulling her stuff out of her locker with unnecessary force. "If it wasn't for you, I would've expected Matt to be thrilled when I dumped him." She slammed the locker door shut again and stalked off to the showers.

X

As late as the talk with Bonnie and Caroline had made her getting to the locker room, Elena raced so quickly through showering, dressing, and doing her hair and makeup that she was still the first one back out. She walked outside, but the football field was deserted, so she went and dumped her cheer stuff in her car before heading back into the building and down the hall to wait outside the boys' locker room instead. Resisting the urge to check her phone yet again, she pulled her journal out of her purse and reread the new pages she'd filled at the library to keep her mind off what she was about to do.

After about fifteen minutes, the football team began to reappear. A few of the guys said hi to her as they left the locker room, and she smiled and said hi back, though every time the door opened and it wasn't Matt, her nerves would ratchet up just a little more, until she was on the verge of cracking and fleeing the scene. She could always hold off until Monday to break up with him, right? But the next guy to come out actually _was_ Matt, laughing with Tyler Lockwood about something that had happened on the field earlier.

"Hey," said Elena, stepping forward. The boys sobered up at once. Matt's mouth was twisted in a distinctly uncomfortable expression and Tyler's eyebrows were raised as he glanced back and forth between his best friend and Elena.

"See you later, Ty," said Matt, his eyes on Elena.

"Yeah," said Tyler. "See you, Matt, Elena." He clapped Matt on the shoulder and strode off down the hall, a bulging gym bag twice the size of Elena's slung over his back.

"So," Matt began awkwardly. "Uh, if this is about last night, I didn't mean to make you so mad. I mean, we've talked about all that stuff before, and I thought you were cool with it."

"I know, Matt," said Elena, though privately she wondered how he could've mistaken her unenthusiastic responses as being "cool with it" the previous times he'd brought up his grand future plans for them. "I'm sorry I blew up over it. Still…." She hesitated. "I'm kinda glad it happened."

"What do you mean?" said Matt, looking confused but clearly not yet suspecting what was coming.

"It…it made me come to terms with some things I haven't let myself admit for a while now."

"What things?" said Matt with an uncertain laugh.

Elena swallowed hard and forced herself to keep looking him in the eye. This was it. "You know you're one of the most important people in my life," she said, reaching out and touching his arm, "and you always will be, but…I can't do this anymore."

Matt staggered back a little, looking like he'd taken a heavy blow to the face. But blank shock was quickly replaced with the most heartbreaking expression Elena had ever seen. His shoulders sagged and his eyes filled with tears. She felt like the most horrible person in the world. "Are you…are you breaking up with me?" he asked, his voice cracking.

"I am," she said. Her vision blurred with tears too. "I'm so sorry, Matt. The last thing I wanted was to hurt you, but I don't feel the same way you do and this isn't fair to either of us." The fact that she was parroting what her mom had said made her feel even worse.

"What can I do to fix it?" said Matt, stepping closer. "Please, I love you. Tell me what I can do to fix it."

"You can't fix it, Matt," she said. She looked down at her feet and brushed away her tears. "I just hope you'll be able to forgive me, and that we can be friends again."

Matt didn't say anything. He just stood there. After a few seconds, she couldn't stand it anymore. She took several steps back, then turned and walked away.

Bonnie was waiting just outside the door that led to the parking lot. Elena took one look at her before launching herself into her arms, sobbing so hard she could barely draw breath.

X

Elena spent the next three hours crying her eyes out on Bonnie's bed while Bonnie rubbed her back and told her everything would be okay. She called her mom and managed to choke out what had happened in between heaving sobs, but nothing either of them said made her feel any better. She couldn't get the image of Matt's devastated expression out of her head.

When she glanced at the clock on Bonnie's bedside table and realized that it was already six, she jumped up and grabbed her phone and keys.

"Where are you going?" said Bonnie, surprised.

"I have to go pick up dinner at the Grill if I want to be back home before Damon gets there," said Elena.

"Are you sure you don't want to just tell him to postpone? You can still do your non-date payback dinner thing with him another night. We could have a girls' night instead."

"No, it's too late notice to reschedule. Besides, I think it'll make me feel a little better to do something nice for someone, and anything that can stave off complete emotional collapse right now is of the good."

"Fine, but we're still doing a girls' night, soon," said Bonnie firmly.

Elena gave a feeble smile and let Bonnie hug her one last time before she headed out.

X

Word of the breakup of Mystic Falls High's golden couple was already spreading, which Elena was sure had something to do with Caroline. She felt many eyes on her while she waited for her order at the Grill's takeout counter, but she studiously avoided all of them, her face burning and her eyes stinging with the threat of more tears. Ten minutes seemed to stretch on forever before the cashier handed over the large paper bag full of hot, delicious-smelling food.

She turned to leave in relief, only to find her path blocked by Vicki Donovan. "Vicki," she said. She took in the older girl's set jaw and icy glare, and her spirits sank even further. "I…I guess you heard," she stammered, wishing heartily that she'd gone somewhere—_anywhere_—else to pick up dinner.

"Heard what? That you ripped out my little brother's heart and stomped on it?"

Elena flinched and dropped her gaze. "I didn't want to hurt him."

"You sure about that? Because you just did the one thing that would hurt him the most," Vicki hissed, advancing a couple of steps. "Matty's been in love with you his whole life. What did you think would happen?"

"I'm sorry!" said Elena in a very small voice. "I don't feel the same way. It's not something I can help."

"You couldn't have figured that out before you started dating him? Did you think you could do better than him? Perfect little Elena Gilbert with her big house and her wonderful happy family couldn't settle for the guy from the broken home who'll have to put himself through college—is that it?"

"No!" Elena protested. "That's not what it was at all!"

"Good," said Vicki, her livid face mere inches from Elena's now. "Because you will _never_ find anyone better than him." With a final look of disgust, she stormed away, leaving Elena to flee the restaurant with her order and what little remained of her composure.

She made it home with five minutes to spare before seven, noticing that her parents' car wasn't the only one missing from the driveway; Jenna's was gone too. Laden down as she was with her purse, gym bag, and the food from the Grill, it was tricky to manage the front door, but she finally got it open and went inside, kicking it shut behind her. "Jeremy?" she called loudly.

"What?" came his voice from the kitchen. Elena followed the sound, dumping her purse and gym bag at the foot of the stairs along the way. She was unsurprised to find her brother standing at the island, a quarter of the way through a recently delivered pizza.

"Where's Jenna?" she asked, setting the bag from the Grill on the counter and starting to pull things out.

"After Mom and Dad headed out, she said something about needing to get very drunk and took off," said Jeremy with a shrug. He caught sight of Elena's face and frowned. "Have you been crying?"

"Yeah," said Elena. "I broke up with Matt."

"You okay?" His eyes fell on the food she had just unpacked. "That's a lot of food."

"Oh," she said, "yeah, I have a, uh, a friend coming over."

"Good, because for a second there, I was worried you might be doing some kind of binge thing."

Elena rolled her eyes and smacked him on the arm before heading out of the kitchen to go put her stuff away. She had barely thrown her workout clothes in the hamper and shoved the gym bag back in her closet when the doorbell rang. "I'll get it!" she yelled. She took one quick look in her vanity mirror and despaired over her obvious post-cry face—at least her makeup wasn't smeared—, then dashed out of her room. She descended the stairs two at a time, rendering her slightly flushed and out of breath when she reached the door.

Thinking she probably looked like a complete mess, she smoothed a few stray strands of hair away from her face and pulled the door open. There stood Damon, looking just as gorgeous as he had the previous night—more so, even, because the light was better, though the bad boy vibe was very slightly diminished by the fact that he'd swapped out the black shirt and leather jacket for a well-tailored black button-up today.

"Hey, heartbreaker," he said, teasing smirk firmly in place.

Elena groaned. "If you start up with that, then this really _will_ end up being about comfort food and a shoulder to cry on," she said, in spite of the fact that she was already smiling more than she had in hours. "Come on in," she added, stepping aside, "I've got everything set up in the kitchen, and we can watch a movie or something if you want."

"Sounds good to me," said Damon with a grin. Elena led the way to the kitchen, where Jeremy was currently on his fourth slice of pizza. He froze when he saw Elena's company.

"_This_ is your 'friend'?" he said, staring at Damon with no small amount of mistrust.

"You must be the little brother, Jeremy," said Damon, unfazed by Jeremy's reaction to him. "I'm Damon."

"What are you, like twenty-five?" said Jeremy. "What are you doing hanging out with my sister?"

"_Jer_," said Elena. "Knock it off!"

"If you must know, Elena and I are making plans to elope to Vegas," said Damon, throwing an arm casually around Elena's shoulders as if he did it all the time. Heaving a dramatic sigh, he looked at Elena, who was now fighting back giggles at the appalled look on Jeremy's face. "I guess we can't count on him to cover for us with your parents like you were hoping, baby."

Elena pouted. "That's going to make it much riskier," she said, placing a hand on Damon's chest and looking into his eyes with the soppiest expression she could muster, though her entire body was shaking now with the effort not to laugh, "but we can still make this work. Our love can overcome anything!"

"What the hell?!" said Jeremy furiously.

It was too much. Damon and Elena both burst out laughing. Elena hadn't expected to laugh at all today, but now she had to cling to Damon to keep from falling over.

"You guys are such losers," Jeremy grumbled, taking the pizza box over to the table instead.

It took at least a minute for them to recover.

"_Nice_ improv," said Elena when she could finally speak again, now holding herself up with the edge of the counter.

"Messing with younger brothers has been my specialty since the turn of the century," said Damon.

"Clearly not your only specialty," said Elena. "I'm supposed to be _your_ beacon of optimism, not the other way around. You're totally stealing my thunder."

"I told you I was competitive," said Damon smugly. "You shouldn't underestimate me."

They were still standing very close to each other. Their eyes met, and the grin faded off Elena's face. After a couple of seconds, her gaze was drawn to his lips, which were still twisted in that smirk. If she just leaned a little closer, she'd be able to kiss him. But the thought had barely entered her head when everything about just being his friend and the fact that she looked like his dead girlfriend came flooding back like a bucketful of icy water.

"So, uh," she said, shaking herself, "I got us burgers." She gestured to the counter with all the food from the Grill laid out. "If you need more condiments, they're in the fridge door."

"I'm hurt, Elena," said Damon, "I rescue you from a very long and boring walk home and all it's worth to you is burgers?"

"You're the one who specified that you wanted takeout," said Elena loftily. "In Mystic Falls, that doesn't leave me with a lot of options." She opened the bag of fries and popped one into her mouth. "Besides, maybe I'd rather return the favor in multiple installments."

"I accept these terms," he said, making his eyes do that playful flashing thing and snatching a couple of fries for himself. As he did, Elena noticed the rather huge silver ring with a blue stone in it that he was wearing on his middle finger.

"Wow," she said as she unwrapped her burger. "That's quite the ring you've got there."

"Oh, yeah," said Damon, holding up the hand and wiggling his fingers, "we Salvatores are a little old fashioned."

"Then I guess the same goes for the Gilberts," said Elena. "My dad has this huge ring he wears, too. It's been passed down since like the eighteen hundreds or something." She bit into the burger, then wrinkled her nose and lifted the bun.

"You don't like pickles?" said Damon, watching her remove the offending dill chips while he unwrapped his own burger. "What's wrong with you?"

"If you want mine, you can have them," said Elena with raised eyebrows.

They were just finishing their food when Jeremy came back to put the remaining pizza in the fridge, and when they noticed his wary expression, they couldn't resist teasing him a little more. They started doing sickeningly sweet couple-y things like feeding each other the last few fries while calling each other ridiculous pet names.

"You two better pay me back for that pizza when you make me puke it all up," he said, scowling.

Elena laughed. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry. We'll stop," she said.

"_Thank_ you," said Jeremy, heading into the living room.

"Spoilsport," Damon muttered in Elena's ear, but he withdrew to a more respectable distance anyway. "If you want to get that movie going, I can clean this up."

"I don't know," she said, looking at him suspiciously. "I'm already on the installment plan; is that gonna count against my score?"

"Only if you pick anything by Mel Brooks or Michael Bay. Something about those initials seems to render directors incapable of subtlety. But I'm a neat freak, so you get the cleanup for free."

Elena snickered. "Okay," she said.

Jeremy was sitting in the recliner when she went into the living room. She frowned at him. "You staying?"

"Until he goes," he said, a very stubborn expression on his face.

Elena rolled her eyes. "Don't be so paranoid. We're just friends."

"I don't care," said Jeremy.

Feeling slightly guilty for harassing him so much in the kitchen, Elena made her movie selection partly for his benefit. She popped the disk in, grabbed the remotes for the TV and DVD player, and flopped down onto the big couch.

Damon was back by the time the menu screen came up. "_The Princess Bride_," he said approvingly. "Haven't seen that one in a while." Instead of taking the unoccupied love seat, he shot Jeremy a wicked grin. Before either Gilbert sibling could say a word, he had seized Elena by the ankles, hoisted her legs up off the third cushion, sat down, and dropped her calves across his lap.

"Seriously?" said Jeremy, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

Elena rolled her head around on the armrest to look at him and shrugged, but offered no other reaction to Damon's move.

X

_The Princess Bride_ was as fun to watch as it always was, but Elena found herself wishing now and then that she'd picked something she couldn't recite word for word instead. While she and Damon had been talking, eating, and messing with Jeremy, it had been easy to avoid miserable thoughts about Matt, but the movie wasn't nearly as good of a distraction.

There were a few moments throughout the ninety-eight minute runtime when she glanced over at Damon and was struck by a suspicion that he was as preoccupied with his own problems as she was with hers. When Westley said the line, "Death cannot stop true love; all it can do is delay it for a while," there was something about the set of Damon's jaw that made Elena sure he was thinking about Katherine, and when Inigo talked about ultimate suffering, Damon's eyes flickered with grim understanding. It made Elena want to sit up and put her arms around him, but she wouldn't draw attention to his reaction with Jeremy in the room.

She suddenly felt like the most awful, selfish person in the world. What right did she have to be miserable? The only thing wrong with her life was that she was the dumper in a breakup. Matt was hurting because of her, yeah, but nobody she cared about had died—well, her grandparents, but she'd been too young to remember them—, and there Damon was, estranged from his brother and grieving the girl he loved.

When it got to the part with Westley and Buttercup's final kiss before they rode off into the sunset with Inigo and Fezzik, Damon let out a loud snort.

"What?" said Elena.

"Pure, maybe, but I don't think I've seen a less passionate kiss in my life," he scoffed, "and _that_ was supposed to have left all other kisses in the history of kissing behind?"

"They're just actors," said Jeremy. "It's not like it was real."

"No, I'm with Damon," said Elena. "That performance broke the cardinal rule of writing. Show, don't tell. We should be able to _see_ the passion, not just have the grandpa say it's there and then accept it blindly."

"You are such a writing nerd," said Jeremy. "But the whole story is just what the kid is imagining. What does he know about passionate kisses? He started out wanting to just skip those parts."

"So?" said Damon. "I'd rather see the real deal than stay in the whiny ten-year-old's head for it."

"What, so you think you could've done it better, then?" said Jeremy.

"Hell yes I could've!" said Damon indignantly. He look over at Elena and waggled his eyebrows. "What do you say, wanna be my demonstration buddy?"

"Why not?" said Elena, swinging her legs down so she could sit up and scooting closer to him.

"Okay, I am so done here," said Jeremy loudly, before jumping up and practically running out of the room.

Elena wanted to laugh this one off like they had the other fake couple pranks, but it seemed that all the humor of the situation had fled with Jeremy, and she was left painfully aware of the fact that she was once again within kissing distance of the most attractive man she'd ever seen. Jeremy's presence had made it all safe and easy not to think about the implications of anything, but now the air was thick with tension and Damon's beautiful, piercing eyes were locked on hers and all she could think about was how amazing of a kisser he probably was. They leaned closer. One of Damon's hands came up to cradle the base of her neck, and her eyes drifted shut.

But then she felt his lips on her forehead. She pulled back, looking up at him in confusion.

"Elena," he said quietly, his eyes flickering back and forth between hers. "If I do kiss you, it's not going to be after you've spent half the day crying about another guy."

For two seconds, she just stared at him, and then the dam broke. All the hurt and remorse and sympathy pain for Matt that she'd hoped she was done crying about came rushing back in, and the next thing she knew, she was in Damon's arms, her face buried in his shoulder, getting tears all over his probably very expensive shirt. His posture was rigid at first, but quickly relaxed, and his grip on her tightened.

She didn't know how long they stayed that way, but she was vaguely aware that the movie had rolled into the credits. When the opening notes of "Storybook Love" started up, she tore herself away from Damon and made a mad grab for the remote to shut the TV off. "I'm sorry," she said. "How many more burgers will it take to pay for that shirt?"

"Oh, at least a dozen," said Damon. This was gentler and less lighthearted than their previous banter, a way of acknowledging what had just happened without actually addressing it.

Gravel crunched outside, and Elena stood up. "I think my parents are home," she said, wiping her eyes.

"Want me to go?" said Damon, also getting to his feet.

"Wait," said Elena. "I'll introduce you. They'll want to know whose car is parked out there anyway."

He nodded, and they started to make their way towards the door, but it opened before they reached the hall. "We're home!" Grayson called loudly.

"Thank God!" came Jeremy's muffled response from upstairs, which made Damon smirk and Elena giggle in spite of herself. Another couple of steps and they were in the hall. Grayson and Miranda broke off whatever they were talking about when they saw Damon.

"Who's this, honey?" asked Miranda.

Before Elena could answer, Grayson noticed her puffy eyes and red nose. "Have you been making my daughter cry, young man?" he said, his expression stern and a hint of a threat in his tone.

"No, Dad," said Elena hastily, "it wasn't his fault. Just more Matt-related waterworks."

Grayson seemed unconvinced until he shared a glance with his wife. "Fine," he said, nodding once.

"Anyway," said Elena, mustering a smile, "Mom, Dad, this is Zach Salvatore's nephew, Damon."

* * *

*dramatic chord* So yeah, that was chapter two. I really enjoyed exploring Elena's relationships with all these characters in the wake of her parents not dying. I find the differences and similarities fascinating. Even so, I'm not one for teen breakup drama, so part of me would've liked to just get past all that as quickly as possible. However, I think that it was an extremely crucial life experience for Elena to actually dump someone, because she *is* indecisive, and it's wreaked all kinds of love triangle havoc on her in canon. On Damon's side of it, before you accuse me of writing him too nice, the most important thing to remember is that even though this is S1 Damon, it's S1 Damon while Stefan is nowhere in sight. Judging from the way he was with Elena when they first met, that made a huge difference. I feel like the vast majority of the horrible things he did early on were specifically about antagonizing his brother. So until Stefan is there to antagonize, Damon's only focus is getting ready to open the tomb, to which end lying low is his smartest option.


	3. This Kingdom by the Sea

Chapter three is here! Enjoy. And boy is this fandom active. Nearly fifty reviews from just the first two chapters? You guys rock. And the S4 finale! I'm so happy. Can't wait for S5.

* * *

Elena's smile faded into a look of confusion. Nobody spoke, but the atmosphere of the hall had changed dramatically at her mention of Damon's name. Her mother's face had once again drained of color, and her father had straightened up, eyes flashing. Elena glanced at Damon and saw that his eyes had narrowed slightly. But the next second, everything was back to normal.

"It's nice to meet you, Damon," said Grayson. "But it's getting a little late for company, don't you think, sweetie?" he added to Elena.

"Damon was just going," she said, still frowning at both her parents. They stepped aside to make room as she and Damon walked the rest of the way to the door, which she opened.

"See you around, Elena," said Damon. He shot one last brief glance at Miranda and Grayson before heading out.

Elena shut the door behind him, then turned to face her parents. For several seconds, they merely stood frozen, but as soon as Damon's car engine started up outside, they both rushed at Elena with expressions of concern that bordered on panic.

"Are you okay, Elena?" said Miranda, staring at Elena's neck and running her hands down her shoulders and arms.

"Mom, I'm fine!" said Elena, shrugging her mom's hands away. She felt like a five-year-old who'd just been caught doing something dangerous.

"What happened?" said Grayson.

"Nothing," said Elena. "What's going on? Why are you freaking out?"

"Elena, can you remember everything that's happened since you met him?" said Miranda, talking over her.

"Of course I can!" she said. "What are you talking about?"

"Are you _sure_?" said Grayson. "Are you absolutely sure you remember everything? Think carefully."

"Why wouldn't I remember?" said Elena. "What, do you think he bashed me on the head or something? My memory is fine!"

"Tell us, sweetie," said Miranda. "Tell us everything you've done since last night."

"Okay, I played Pictionary with you guys, I went to bed, I got up and talked to you and Aunt Jenna, I went to the library to write, I went to cheer practice, I broke up with Matt, I went to Bonnie's, I went to the Grill to get dinner, I came home, and then Damon got here and we ate dinner and watched _The Princess Bride_ with Jeremy, and then you got back," she rattled off.

"And you didn't have any strange dreams last night?" Grayson pressed.

"No!" said Elena. She made a face. "Or, I don't know. Maybe? No stranger than dreams usually are."

This seemed to satisfy them a little. Some of the tension eased from their bodies, and they stepped back, giving her more space. "Did he say what he wanted with you?" asked Grayson.

"What do you mean, 'what he wanted with me'? Look, I swear I was only crying over Matt. Damon didn't do anything."

"What was he doing here?" said Miranda.

"I bought him a burger to pay him back for the ride last night, and we watched the movie. Why are you acting like he broke in or something?"

"Because he's dangerous, Elena," said Grayson harshly. "You need to stay away from him."

"Dangerous how?" said Elena, frustrated. What on Earth was going on? "He didn't do anything!"

"You have to trust us," said Grayson. "If you run into him again, call us immediately."

X

Damon raised the crystal to his lips and swallowed another mouthful of bourbon as he paced back and forth in front of the enormous fireplace in the parlor. So much for lying low. He had thought that his nephew had a healthy sense of self-preservation, but apparently not, or he wouldn't have told the Gilberts that he was a vampire. The only reason Zach was still alive was that he hadn't returned to the boarding house yet.

The Gilberts had tried to hide their reactions to hearing his name, but he'd heard their heartbeats quicken, had smelled the fear rolling off them in waves as their eyes flickered back and forth between him and their daughter.

Bigots. He hadn't done anything to Elena, nor did he plan to. He could easily have made a move at any point during the last two evenings, and now that she had invited him into her home and almost literally thrown herself at him, it would be even easier, but he still had no intention of hurting or toying with her. Maybe it was just that she looked like Katherine, or that he was so close to getting Katherine herself back, but the thought of using Elena's emotions against her held no appeal.

The more time he spent with her, the more intrigued he became. He had accepted almost instantly that just because she was the physical double of Katherine didn't mean they had anything else in common, but the differences continued to astound him. Where Katherine had delighted in capturing the hearts of both Damon and his brother without caring how much it could hurt them, Elena was so selfless that she was almost as heartbroken over her breakup as the boy she'd dumped.

Katherine might've played a payback game like the one he and Elena were playing, but she only would've done it to see what she could get out of it. Elena seemed to enjoy it purely as a fun way to ensure that she wasn't getting more out of this friendship than he was. And that was a marvel in itself—that this girl truly wanted to be his friend.

Even when they'd been teasing her brother and her eyes had been bright with laughter and mischief, she managed to be completely different from Katherine. It had been innocent, lighthearted fun for her, so that when her brother was finally out of the room, she had been surprised and completely unprepared when the atmosphere between them changed. Katherine would have planned it all deliberately, and definitely would not have let him get away with merely kissing her on the forehead.

And of course, Katherine would never have been caught dead showing the kind of vulnerability it took to cry into someone's shoulder, even if it might've helped her get what she wanted. In all Damon's nearly one hundred and sixty-nine years, that had been the first time he'd held a girl while she cried. It had been a strange, though not unpleasant experience. Still more foreign had been the overwhelming urge to comfort her.

All the same, if Elena knew anything about him at all, she'd be running as fast as she could in the opposite direction. That might well happen sooner rather than later, judging by her parents' reactions to him, but he would enjoy it while it lasted.

Just then, he heard the sounds of a car approaching. He drained the remaining contents of his glass and set it back on the bar. It seemed that his dear nephew was home at last.

It took Zach about thirty more seconds to enter the house after Damon heard the engine cut off. Zach's vital signs betrayed no indication that he knew who awaited him in the parlor, and Damon preferred it that way. He waited until Zach was in the room before making his presence known, stepping dramatically out of the shadows of the fireplace.

"Hello, Zach," he said with a smile that showed his teeth.

"Uncle Damon!" said Zach, taking an automatic step backwards, his heart rate kicking into double-time just like the Gilberts' had. His eyes flickered around the room as though looking for an escape—he might actually have been looking for a weapon, but Damon refused to believe he could be related, even this distantly, to someone moronic enough to do _that_—and the whole room already reeked of his fear.

"Now, that's interesting," said Damon as he prowled closer. "From the smell of things, you're just as terrified of me as you were the last time I saw you. So I've gotta ask myself why a man smart enough to be that terrified would do something as _stupid_ as telling Mama and Papa Gilbert his little family secret."

"What?" said Zach blankly.

"Yeah," said Damon, still closing in on Zach, who seemed to have decided that it would be pointless to keep backing away. "I was having a very enjoyable evening with Miss Elena and her brother when their parents showed up. They know, Zach." He reached out a hand to clasp Zach's shoulder. To an outside observer, the gesture might have looked friendly, but Zach winced; Damon's grip was tight enough to bruise.

Damon sighed regretfully. "You remember what I said I would do to you if you told anyone what I am, don't you?"

"What?" Zach said again, his voice cracking around the word this time.

"Well, I have to kill you," said Damon, rolling his eyes, "but if you tell me the names of everyone else who knows about me, I'll be nice and make it quick."

"But I didn't tell them!" Zach protested.

Damon raised an eyebrow and Zach's pulse ticked a few beats per minute closer to tachycardia territory. At this rate, he might actually die of fright. But that would only be funny if he finished spilling all of his useful information first. To encourage him to be more forthcoming, Damon let his eyes go red and the veins begin to creep down his lower lids and cheeks—slowly, for maximum effect.

"I swear, Uncle Damon, I never said a word to anyone, and I have no idea how Grayson and Miranda found out. Grayson's never mentioned it to me."

"Huh," said Damon, releasing Zach from his gaze, if not his grip, and frowning.

"Please," said Zach desperately, "if you don't believe me, lock me up until the vervain is out of my system and ask me again."

"Oh, I believe you," said Damon. "There's always been something funny about the Gilberts—_besides_ their tendency to go insane, I mean." He turned his glare back on Zach. "But we _will_ be having a discussion later about how you've managed to get vervain in your system even though I made _very_ sure there wasn't any of it left in this town."

X

"Are you sure we shouldn't just tell Elena the truth?" said Miranda.

"I don't want to burden her with all of that until we have no choice," said Grayson. Normally, while they talked, they'd be cleaning the kitchen of any clutter and food debris left by the kids throughout the day, but for some strange reason, it was already spotless, so they merely stood across the island from each other as they conversed. "She isn't like Jeremy, just another Gilbert descendant to carry on the tradition—she's a Petrova doppelgänger. Until she's an adult and ready to live away from home, she shouldn't have to know the dangers that surround her. _We_ can protect her. She should be carefree and happy as long as possible."

"But how will she know to stay away from vampires if she doesn't know they exist?" said Miranda. "Mikael worked alone, and things have been quiet ever since Abby put him down, but we know that Damon Salvatore has a brother, and there could be others."

"Elena will trust our judgment," said Grayson. "We told her Damon is dangerous, and she'll listen."

"Will she?" said Miranda wryly. "She's a good girl, but she's still a teenager. I'm not sure we gave her enough of an explanation."

"Then maybe we _will_ have to tell her," Grayson sighed. "But only if something else happens. You've got her on the vervain now, so if he approaches her again, he won't be able to try anything overt without tipping his hand to her."

"Who else should we involve in this?" asked Miranda. "The Council? We already told Jenna because she's family, so what about your brother?"

"I might tell John, but I want to keep the Council out of it. None of them really knows what they're doing—they didn't have a clue when Mikael was here, and most of them haven't even encountered a vampire before. Besides, the more people who know about Elena, the more dangerous it is for her."

"Maybe Zach knows something," said Miranda.

"I'm going to talk to him at my office tomorrow. Nobody else'll be there on a Sunday, so we won't be overheard."

"Good. And there is someone else who can help us find out what Damon's planning."

"Who?" said Grayson, frowning.

"Sheila Bennett."

"Do you think she'll want to help us after what happened to Abby?"

"Damon isn't an Original; she won't need to tap into dark magic to take him down. We just need her to help us find out why he's here. If he's the only one after Elena this time, we can just stake him and it'll be over. If more are coming, we can get ready for them." She paused, the fierce scowl slipping off her face at sight of the warm expression on her husband's. "What?" she said.

"It's almost worth having this kind of chaos come into our lives to see you in Mama Bear mode, Miranda," he said fondly.

She smiled back and ducked her head a little, but the sweet moment was short-lived. "Almost," she agreed. He walked around the island and pulled her into his arms. She hugged him back tightly. He might love how strong she was, but she doubted very much that she would have that strength if he wasn't at her side.

The phone rang then. They broke apart and Grayson picked up the receiver off the counter behind him. "Hello? Jenna!"

Miranda raised her eyebrows and held out her hand. He passed her the phone at once. "What's going on?" she asked.

"Can you come pick me up?" said Jenna on the other end. Her voice was dull and a little slurred. "I'm kinda drunk."

"Where are you, the Grill?" said Miranda, guessing based on the music and voices in the background.

"Yeah," said Jenna.

"Okay," said Miranda. She felt a little guilty. She knew this was because of the bomb she and Grayson had dropped on Jenna the previous evening. But if Jenna, who was almost out of her twenties, was taking it this hard, then perhaps Grayson was right, and Elena shouldn't have to worry about any of it yet. "We're on our way." She hung up and looked at Grayson again.

"You go," he said. "Damon Salvatore has been invited into our home. He could come back. I'm not leaving the kids here alone."

Miranda nodded and kissed him briefly before grabbing the keys and heading out.

X

Despite the strange behavior of Elena's parents the night before, Sunday breakfast was the same as it always was, with her dad making them all pancakes, bacon, and eggs while her mom prepared her specialty: orange juice from concentrate. Jenna wasn't the only Sommers sister who couldn't cook.

Elena and Jeremy happily dug into their loaded plates of food as soon as they sat down to them. Jenna touched nothing solid, merely taking gulps of V8 between winces. Miranda only drank two cups of tea, and she made everyone else have some of it too before they left the table. Grayson got halfway through his plate before checking his watch and announcing that he had to run to the office for a few hours, a common enough occurrence that nobody commented on it.

When Elena had finished eating and deposited her dishes in the sink, she headed straight back upstairs to beat Jeremy to the shower. Sure enough, five minutes later, he was pounding on the door and yelling for her to hurry. "Why should I, do you have plans?" she yelled back over the sound of the water.

"Yeah, plans to shower with hot water!"

"Use Mom and Dad's shower!"

"No way! All my stuff's in there!"

"Then I guess you'll just have to get here faster than me next time!"

There was another noise that sounded like Jeremy had kicked the door, but he made no further argument.

When Elena left the bathroom an hour later (she might have taken _slightly_ more time than she absolutely needed to do her hair and makeup), she checked her phone for the first time that morning. She found seven new texts from Caroline, three missed calls and two texts from Matt, one text from Bonnie, and nothing from Damon. Still a little annoyed that Caroline's gossiping had led to the incident with Vicki at the Grill, she ignored those texts. With a squirming feeling of apprehension in her stomach, she sat down on her bed and opened Matt's instead.

The first one was tagged from 11:42 the previous night, after the three calls. She'd already been asleep, and her phone had been on silent. The text read simply:_ "Elena, can you please call me back? I love you."_

The second one must've come while she was having breakfast. _"Elena, come on, just call me back. I need to talk to you. I don't understand where any of what happened yesterday came from. You said there's nothing I can do to fix it, but I didn't even know it was broken. Please call."_

By the time she finished reading it, she was in tears again. Her finger hovered over the call button, but she couldn't press it. Instead, she opened a new text and began a reply. After ten minutes, her phone's drafts folder was full of apologies and explanations, but she still hadn't sent Matt anything. Eventually, she gave up and checked the text from Bonnie. She'd see Matt at school tomorrow. They could talk then.

_"Is everything okay? How was dinner with Damon?"_ said Bonnie's text.

Instead of texting back, Elena hit the call button.

Bonnie picked up on the second ring. "Hey," she said. "Are you doing better today?"

"A little," said Elena. "I managed to get all the way through breakfast without thinking about Matt once…but then I read the texts he sent me since yesterday."

"Oh, no," said Bonnie. "I'm guessing he's still in the denial stage?"

"Yeah."

"What about you? Any regrets?"

Elena sniffled. "As bad as I feel for hurting Matt, no. I know it was right."

"The rest will get better soon," said Bonnie. "So…what about dinner?"

"It was really fun," said Elena, managing a small smile. "Just what I needed. Except…." She bit her lip.

"Except?" Bonnie prompted.

"I might've tried to kiss him," said Elena, wincing.

"You did _what_?!" said Bonnie. "And what do you mean, you _tried_?"

"Damon stopped it. I guess he knew I was in crazy rebound mode, and so he didn't let it happen. He kissed me on the forehead instead and let me cry all over his expensive shirt."

Elena heard a dreamy sigh on the other end. "That's so sweet," said Bonnie.

"Don't make this harder," said Elena sternly. "I'm still trying to just be friends with him."

"Good luck with that," said Bonnie, unable to completely mask the derision in her tone.

"Well, there's another reason that could be hard," said Elena.

"What?" said Bonnie.

"My parents met him. As soon as he left, they freaked out and told me to stay away from him."

"Did they say why?" asked Bonnie incredulously.

"Not really. They just kept saying he's dangerous and asked me a lot of weird questions about whether I can remember everything that happened since I met him."

"Why would they be worried about your memory?" said Bonnie, sounding just as perplexed as Elena felt.

"I have no idea!" said Elena, frustrated. "I mean, I didn't even drink at the bonfire before I left, and I haven't taken any blows to the head or anything since then. I don't understand why they're acting this way. It's not like Damon is a complete stranger—his family goes back as far as ours in Mystic Falls."

"So…does that mean you're going to hang out with him again anyway?" said Bonnie with a hint of teasing slyness reminiscent of Caroline (though if it _had_ been Caroline, it would've been more than a hint).

"Well, I have to see him at least one more time," said Elena ruefully. "I have to apologize for trying to kiss him."

Bonnie laughed. "Elena Gilbert, even when you're being rebellious, you're not doing it to have fun. I'm pretty sure you're a saint."

"_Anyway_," said Elena, but she was smiling. "Do you think tonight would be good for girls' night?"

"Sure! My place? Several hours earlier than necessary so that you have an alibi?"

"_Bonnie_," said Elena. She fidgeted with a loose string on her blanket for a moment. "Yes," she said, screwing up her face.

Bonnie laughed again. "Okay, I'll see you tonight. Want me to call Caroline?"

"Go ahead," said Elena. She'd rather not, but she was going to be in trouble with Caroline already for missing seven consecutive texts without responding, and she still had no intention of even reading them.

When she got off the phone with Bonnie, she discovered she had another new text. She assumed it was just Caroline again, but checked anyway. To her delight, this one was from Damon.

_"Did you manage to convince your parents that they should let you run off with me to Vegas?"_

Elena grinned and started to reply at once. _"Nope. So it looks like we'll just have to be really sneaky about it."_

She wondered if this exchange was entirely a joke to him, or if he was seeing the other layer she was. The whole eloping to Vegas thing was obviously a joke, but her parents' disapproval of their friendship was not, and if it was going to continue, they _would_ have to be sneaky about it. She frowned. But he didn't know about her parents' disapproval anyway, and his next text pulled her out of these thoughts.

_"How do you plan to boost your score today?"_

_ "Can we forget about the score thing for one day and just hang out?"_ Almost immediately after pressing send, it occurred to her that he might not appreciate this more serious turn, but his reply banished her worries.

_"Sure, but I'm picking the location."_

_ "Is it a location that would go with apples and peanut butter and banana sandwiches?"_

_ "I thought you didn't want to put today on the score sheet!"_

_ "I don't! It's just for in case we get hungry."_

_ "Fine then, little Miss Overprepared."_

_ "Mock all you want. You won't be complaining when you get hungry and there's something to eat."_

_ "Touché," he said. Then, "Meet me at Wickery Bridge around noon? We'll be taking my car to the real destination."_

X

When Elena descended the stairs a few minutes later, a backpack containing only keys, phone, and wallet so far slung over her back, she could hear her mom and aunt talking in the kitchen.

"I appreciate you telling me, I really do," Jenna was saying, "but I need some more time to process everything, and I don't see what use I can be around here anyway. You and Grayson seem to have it all under control."

"We don't have anything under control," said Miranda grimly. "We don't even know why he's in Mystic Falls yet."

"Still," said Jenna, "you've known about all this for years. Since we were kids. You have some clue how to deal with it."

"I know," said Miranda. "Things have been quiet in Mystic Falls for so long that we thought there was no reason to burden you with this. But now it's happening and we wish we'd prepared you better." There was a pause, and then she said, "Have you thought about what you'll do when the semester ends?"

"Not really," said Jenna. "I was planning on coming home, but that was before. I think I might check with my landlord if the apartment is still open for the summer."

Elena didn't understand what they were talking about, and she stayed very quiet and motionless halfway down the stairs to listen. What was it that had them so worried—worried enough that Jenna was reconsidering her plans to stay the summer with them like she usually did? Who was this "he" in Mystic Falls? The only "he" new in town that Elena knew of was Damon, and though her parents had completely spazzed about her spending time with him for no apparent reason, he couldn't be worth this kind of DEFCON 1 behavior, could he? It had to be someone else.

"What are you doing?" said Jeremy's voice right behind her. Elena jumped and almost lost her footing on the step. Jeremy didn't wait for her answer, but kept going down the stairs past her. His hair was still wet from his own shower. Shooting an annoyed look at his back, she followed him.

As soon as she and Jeremy were in sight, Miranda and Jenna stopped talking and changed the subject to something much more trivial. Jeremy plopped down in front of the TV and turned on his X-Box, and Elena grabbed the stuff she needed to make peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

"You heading out?" asked Miranda when Elena began to bag the sandwiches instead of eating them.

"Yeah," said Elena. "Bonnie and I…and possibly Caroline…are having a girls' night, but we're going to have a picnic first."

"Why'd you say Caroline's name like that?" said Jenna, who was now sipping from a tall glass of water. Her winces were less frequent than they had been at breakfast, but not entirely gone.

"Because Caroline's the reason every single person in Mystic Falls High and the rest of the town in general already knows I broke up with Matt," said Elena. "It even got around to Matt's sister, who really ripped me a new one when I ran into her at the Grill yesterday."

"Do you regret your decision?" said Miranda.

"No," said Elena, grabbing two apples from the fridge and dropping them in the bag with the sandwiches. "I feel awful for Matt, but I wouldn't take it back." She zipped her bag up. "I'll see you guys later."

X

Elena made it to Wickery Bridge almost exactly at twelve o'clock. Damon was already there, his car parked at the far end of the bridge, standing outside it and leaning against it with his arms folded over his chest. The leather jacket was back, this time over a dark blue version of the black shirt she'd ruined last night.

"So where are we going?" said Elena without preamble as soon as she got out of her car.

"Ah-ah-ah," he chided, waving a finger at her. "It's a surprise. Not, you know, a big surprise, because we're not keeping score today, but I'm still not going to tell you."

Elena pursed her lips, though a grin was tugging at them. "Fine," she said.

He smirked and opened the passenger door of his car for her. She slid in, dropping her backpack on the floor at her feet. While he went around to the driver's side, she poked the radio on. All she got was static, so she twiddled the knob until she found a station, which was playing a country song.

"No," Damon groaned as he got into the car, dragging the word out into several syllables. "What are you playing on my radio?"

"Country," said Elena. "You don't like it?"

"No," he said, looking appalled by the very suggestion. "Classic rock, thank you." He adjusted the dial accordingly and put the car in drive.

"Country's not that bad," said Elena over what sounded like a Van Halen song.

"Oh yes it is," said Damon as he pulled out onto the road. "If country music is good, then why do the singers only ever sing about their breakups? It's a cycle. They write awful music that drives away their dates, and then their depression gives them more material for new awful music to drive away more dates. The entire genre these days is one big pity party. At least they had a broader range of things to complain about back when it was the old country ballads."

Elena burst out laughing in spite of herself. "Hey, no," she said, "you have to admit that some country is at least good to dance to. Country swing, and stuff?"

"No, no," said Damon, shaking his head. "If you want swing, _big band_ is the good stuff."

"You mean like fifties swing?" said Elena, her eyes widening in delight. "You know how to dance like that?"

"I'm a man of many skills," said Damon, flashing her that smirk again. "I should take you swing dancing sometime," he added thoughtfully, his eyes back on the road.

"They still have dances like that?" she said.

"If you know where to look," said Damon. The Van Halen song ended and one by Bon Jovi started up. Damon made a face and switched the radio off. "Of course, the vast majority of the people who go to these things are middle-aged and overweight," he added, "but I don't mind holding a monopoly on the sex appeal at a party."

Normally, Elena wouldn't find such displays of arrogance and conceit attractive, but Damon layered it with just enough sarcasm to make it clear that his ego wasn't truly that enormous, so she merely snickered. "Be nice," she scolded, smacking him lightly on the arm. "And since I assume this will be when we're back to keeping score, how am I supposed to top swing dancing?"

"That, I'm afraid, is your problem. Unless you want to concede defeat."

"Hah! Like I'd give up that easily."

A couple of minutes later, they reached the old quarry at the edge of the city limits, and Damon pulled over. "Here we are," he announced. Once again, he was out of the car and opening her door for her before she could even reach for the handle.

"It's been a long time since I've been out here," she said, grabbing her bag and getting out.

"Me too," said Damon. The way he said it made it seem like there was some private joke to it, but she was too preoccupied to think much of it.

"So, um," she said as they started walking over towards the water. "I'm sorry I tried to kiss you."

Damon snorted. "Don't apologize. I happen to enjoy it when beautiful girls try to kiss me."

"Damon!" said Elena, jabbing him in the ribs with an elbow. "I'm being serious."

"Pfft, so am I."

"Stop it! I had this whole speech planned, and you've got to let me say it."

"Okay," he said, holding up his hands in surrender, though he still looked amused. "I'm listening."

Elena took a deep breath to give herself a second to gather her thoughts. "It shouldn't have happened. I didn't mean for it to happen, and I'm glad you stopped it. I told myself I wasn't going to be your rebound, but then I turned around and tried to use you as mine. That's why I'm sorry. I want to be your friend. I hope I didn't screw that up too bad."

"People who want to be my friend are _way_ too few and far between for me to make a big deal over something like that." He looked at her sideways. "Why _do_ you want to be my friend so badly anyway?"

"Does there have to be a reason?" she said a little incredulously. "We hit it off Friday night and I didn't want that to be the end of it. You obviously didn't either, or you wouldn't have texted me yesterday."

"Don't pout," said Damon as they came to a big fallen log near the water's edge and sat down. "I'm a cynic, remember?" He pulled his phone out of his pocket and waved it at her, his eyes twinkling.

Elena blushed, remembering what she'd put in instead of her name on his contacts list.

"Speaking of which," he said, "you are a terrible faith in humanity coach, you know?"

"What?" said Elena indignantly. "How come?"

"I'm not saying you don't practice what you preach. I've only known you two days and I'm already pretty sure you have the biggest heart of anyone I've ever met."

"Then how does that make me a terrible coach?" she said, frowning.

"Because right now, it seems like that big heart of yours is only bringing you pain."

Elena pulled her feet up onto the log too and hugged her knees, looking away from him. "How else should I feel a day after I broke the heart of someone I love?"

"Are you kidding?" he said. "You should feel fantastic!"

Elena opened her mouth angrily, but Damon kept going.

"Elena, you had the guts to get out of a relationship you knew was going nowhere, and it was a clean break. Despite what you and your ex may feel now, that was _the_ best thing you could've done for both of you, so don't beat yourself up so much."

The anger that had flared up in her seconds before was gone now. Elena merely watched Damon as she considered his words. "Is that what you wish Katherine had done?" she asked quietly.

His expression hardened. For a long moment, she was worried that she'd crossed a line with that, but then he finally answered. "There's nothing I want more in the world than to know if it was me or my brother she really loved," he said, staring out over the water. "If she chose Stefan, it would hurt like hell, but at least I'd be free." His smirk came back, but there was something forced about it. "Of course, ideally she'd choose me."

"My mom said I was setting Matt free," said Elena. She felt the all too familiar burning in her throat again. "But he deserves so much _better_."

"Don't go there," said Damon. "The only thing he deserved from _you _was the truth, and you already gave him that. Someday, someone else'll come along who wants to give him all that boring future stuff you don't want with him, but your work is done. If you focus too hard on that guilt, you might start to confuse it with regret. Just let it go."

X

Zach was so nervous that even the sound of the door closing behind him as he entered Grayson Gilbert's doctor's office made him jump.

"Zach," said Grayson, who was waiting for him beside the vacated reception desk. "I'm glad you could make it." He frowned, looking Zach up and down. "You look terrible."

"I shouldn't be here," said Zach. "I only came at all because Uncle Damon left the boarding house a while ago, but if he finds out I talked to you—he nearly killed me last night because he thought I was the one who told you about him. I managed to convince him otherwise, but how the hell did you already know?"

"The Gilberts have always known things the rest of the Council has no idea about, the Salvatore family secret being one of them," said Grayson. "Now, the reason I asked you to meet me here. Do you have any idea what Damon is doing in Mystic Falls?"

"No," said Zach. "Uncle Stefan was here the other night, but he left right away and told me to call if I needed anything."

"Stefan was here too?" said Grayson sharply.

"He shows up every few years, but he never stays," said Zach. "And either he's a really good actor, or he had no idea Uncle Damon was in town. He said it's been fifteen years since he last saw him."

Grayson relaxed a little. "Good. It'll be easier if it's just one of them."

"Wait," said Zach, alarmed. "What'll be easier? What are you trying to do?"

"Whatever I have to do to protect my family," said Grayson. "Damon's been invited into my home. He was there alone with my children for nearly two hours last night." He looked at Zach without speaking for a long moment. "I understand if you want to stay out of this. But you are _very_ mistaken if you think that telling your uncle about this conversation will make things easier for you."

X

Elena still seemed very preoccupied with her emotional self-flagellation over dumping this Matt guy. Damon wondered what it would take to get fun Elena back. He glanced over at her as they both ate the sandwiches she'd brought. Peanut butter and banana didn't exactly hit the spot for him, but it wasn't bad.

At first, it looked like she was just staring into space, but then he realized that she was watching something. He followed her gaze to a small flock of ravens flying over the trees at the side of the quarry. Soon, they started dive-bombing each other, playing what almost looked like an aerial version of tag, and Elena laughed.

Damon smirked and chose one of the birds on which to focus his will. This trick was a lot like compulsion, though in some ways easier and in other ways harder. Easier because animal minds were simpler, harder because words had little impact on them, so he had to be able to translate whatever task he wanted the creature to perform into images, instincts, and impulses.

The flight pattern of the chosen raven, a male that was just slightly larger than its peers, faltered for a second and became much less complex as Damon's mind latched onto it. Before he tried to command it, he took a few seconds to strengthen the connection by exploring its thoughts and memories a little. In doing so, he found something that nearly made him forget his plans for entertaining Elena.

The bird had seen his brother.

Two nights previous, while he, Damon, had been walking with Elena to the boarding house, it seemed that Stefan had been hunting in the woods near the bridge. The raven had been roosting in a tree with its little flock when a creature that looked like a man but moved like a shadow had appeared and plunged razor sharp fangs into the neck of a deer. The raven and its flock had all taken flight in alarm, but had later returned to the deer's corpse, which they'd been feasting on ever since.

"Damon?" Elena's questioning voice penetrated his and the raven's combined reminiscing.

He shook his head a little and looked around at her without releasing the bird. "What?" he said. "Sorry, lost in thought."

She laughed. "I just asked if you saw the way those two crows grabbed onto each other's claws and spun around in the air," she said.

"Oh. No, I must have missed it," said Damon. "And they're ravens, not crows."

Elena was looking at him, so she didn't see when his raven broke away from its fellows and dove into the cover of the trees. A few seconds later, it came flying low out of the edge of the forest towards them on their right.

"Look over there," he said, pointing to where the raven had just landed on the ground about ten feet away. "I think he wants a friend."

"More like he wants some of our food," said Elena. She hopped down off the log and moved a little closer to the raven. "Hi, bird," she said. "Want some of this?" she held out her apple core, which still had a fair amount of fruit on it. The raven tilted its head to the side and hopped closer, then opened its beak and let out a low croak.

"That's it, come on," Elena cooed. "How do you know it's a raven, not a crow?" she added to Damon.

"Crows are a little smaller, and their beaks aren't curved like that," he said, sitting back lazily and watching. He wasn't even controlling the bird anymore; it found Elena quite fascinating enough on its own not to bolt—something they had in common.

By now, the raven was pecking at the apple core Elena had set down in front of her, and she was grinning. "Do you think it'd be safe to try and pet him?" she asked hopefully.

"I am _not_ the one you want to be taking safety advice from, but I say go ahead."

Elena rolled her eyes at him, then turned to face the raven again, held out her hand, and whistled a couple of notes. The raven definitely liked her now; offering the food first had been a good strategy. Who needed compulsion anyway when you had big brown doe eyes like hers? Katherine sure as hell hadn't needed it with him.

"Damon, I did it!" Elena squealed in delight. He felt himself smiling at the sight of her stroking the raven's feathers while it repeatedly opened and closed its beak, looking as though it was quite enjoying the attention.

"Nicely done," he said.

"You should try," said Elena, now lightly scratching the beard of feathers under the raven's beak.

"Nah, I think he'd get jealous if I got too close," said Damon.

Elena snorted. "Suit yourself. He needs a name, though, don't you think?"

"What did you have in mind?"

"Edgar," she said decisively.

Damon burst out laughing.

"I'm serious!" she said indignantly. "Don't listen to him, Edgar," she told the bird. "It's the perfect name for you."

Edgar croaked and bobbed his head.

"See?" said Elena. "Two against one."

"Hey, I wasn't objecting," said Damon. "I just think it's funny that you'd go for the obvious Poe reference."

"Maybe he just looks like an Edgar," she said airily. She stroked Edgar's feathers in silence for a moment. "Do you think he'll remember us if he sees us again?"

"Of course he will," said Damon. "I'm completely unforgettable."

"_Damon_," said Elena in exasperation.

"What? Did I say you weren't?"

"Not the point."

"I do think he'll remember," said Damon, more seriously. "Ravens are very smart birds." It was why he preferred them as spies when he had the choice. Most animals were too simple-minded to do anything complicated, but ravens were so clever that it might've seemed eerie to someone who didn't drink blood to survive. Humans tended to be creeped out by them even without knowing that bit of trivia. The fact that Elena was happily stroking this one's feathers and had actually _named_ him raised Damon's opinion of her another few notches.

Apparently her fearlessness went even further. As Damon watched, she succeeded in coaxing Edgar into using her left forefinger as a perch, and she stood up, still stroking him with her free right hand. "Sure you don't want to pet him?" she asked, walking back over to the log. "I'm sure he'll let you. She looked at Edgar. "This is my friend Damon, Edgar. Don't let the whole bad boy exterior fool you, 'cause he's actually pretty awesome, and I'm very glad I met him."

Edgar was bobbing his head as if in agreement. For a few seconds, Damon could only stare at Elena in awe. She meant every word. She was, of course, still woefully under-informed about him, but he couldn't help feeling moved by the sweet, sincere sentiment all the same. He slid off the log and stood up straight. "Bad boy and awesome are _not_ mutually exclusive, you know," he said, stretching out a hand to pet Edgar too.

"Maybe," said Elena, "but it would be much harder to be friends with you if you were _all_ bad boy."

Damon chuckled, but didn't reply, focusing his gaze on the bird again. While Edgar had taken to Elena almost entirely on his own, Damon very much doubted that he would have given him the same calm reception if not for the mental link he'd forged. Animals, particularly the clever ones, tended to have much better instincts about danger than humans did. Damon withdrew his hand, and Edgar cawed and rustled his wings. There were a few answering caws from the ravens still in the sky.

"Ready to go back, Edgar?" Elena asked. She ran her fingers over his feathers one last time before holding her left hand out away from her body and above her head. Edgar flexed his clawed feet for a second, then spread his wings and took flight.

"That was incredible!" she cried, bouncing on the balls of her feet, her face shining with glee. Even Damon's superhuman senses and reflexes couldn't prepare him for what she did next, which was to launch herself at him and throw her arms around him. Like when she'd cried in his arms, for him this was another first. He stood there in shock for a moment before returning the hug.

"I'm so glad you brought me out here," she said as they broke apart.

"Maybe I'll do it again," he said, smiling and beginning to head back to the car.

Elena bit her lip and looked down as she walked next to him. "About that," she said. "My parents kind of might've forbidden me to hang out with you."

"Oh really," he said, amused. "And was this before or after you spent the last couple of hours hanging out with me?"

"Obviously before," said Elena, "but I decided I don't care. They talked to you for all of two seconds and then decided based on that that I can't be friends with you. They've never done that before in my whole life, not even with some of the creeps Aunt Jenna has brought home."

"What makes you so sure they don't have their reasons?"

"Their reasons don't mean much to me if they aren't sharing them," Elena snorted irritably. "And why are you playing devil's advocate anyway? Do you _want_ me to shun you?"

"Course not. See if you can get them to tell you, though. I'm curious."

* * *

Poor Zach. He's just getting threatened by everyone, isn't he? And it kind of cracks me up that Bonnie is actually pro-Damon (not sure how long that'll last, though). About the swing-dancing thing, those of you who've read my Buffyverse stuff might remember that it's my favorite style of dancing and that I can't resist making the awesome vampire characters really good at it and eager to use that knowledge to impress their lady friends. I did a lot of research on ravens and crows for this chapter. Apparently it was crows in the books? But the bird they used in the show looked much more like a raven (I found an interview with Ian in which he said it was actually half and half), and ravens are way more awesome anyway, so I don't care what's in the books or what Bonnie said in the show; I'm using ravens. Hold your skepticism if you don't think a wild raven would actually let a human pet it; I found several youtube videos that prove otherwise. Just go search for "how to pet a wild raven" on there and the right video should pop up at the top of the search. Things are heating up with Miranda and Grayson's plans to protect their family now, and that should come to a head in either chapter four or five. And how long will Damon be able to resist using his knowledge of Stefan's recent whereabouts to screw with him? I don't think it'll be very long at all, do you?


	4. Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

I finished my first editing job, you guys! So now I can work on fanfiction without the nagging guilt that I should be editing. Anyway, here's the new chapter. I even dragged my lovely beta, AnglcDmn, out of bed to have a look at it so that I could post it this morning. :P Enjoy!

* * *

Elena didn't think she'd ever wished so badly that she didn't have to be at school. Everywhere she went on Monday, she felt like she was standing in a spotlight. Every freshman and sophomore girl's eyes were glued to her as she walked the halls between classes, and they were either whispering to their friends or they had their phones out texting. Even a few of the junior and senior girls were intrigued enough by the breakup of two lowly underclassmen to turn their heads her way, and she got the evil eye from some of Matt's friends from the football team as well. Didn't these people have anything better to fixate on than her love life?

Girls' night hadn't exactly been the stress-relieving experience Bonnie had wanted it to be for her either. Caroline had seen to that. Elena could've taken Bonnie's gentle ribbing about Damon, tactfully alternated with much longer periods of comforting reassurance that her friendship with Matt would survive in the end—that would have been perfectly fine. But Caroline's enthusiastic demands for details of her encounters with Damon and insistence that she not let things stay platonic (because a guy like that was sure to be snapped up by the first girl who was brave enough to make a move) had been far too much.

Even in the face of all Caroline's badgering, Elena had managed to refrain from telling either of them about Edgar. Somehow, the fact that she and Damon kind of had a pet raven didn't seem like the sort of detail one could reconcile with patterns of mere friendship. Besides, Edgar was special. She didn't want to share him with anyone else.

The thing she had been dreading most about being back at school now that the weekend was over happened on the way to third period—Matt was waiting for her by her locker. She had a fleeting impulse to turn right around and go to Algebra II without her textbook today, but he spotted her before she could decide whether or not to act on it. She tried not to drag her feet or lower her head as she walked towards him.

"Hey," he said. "I tried to call you."

"I know," said Elena. "I just didn't want to talk about it over the phone."

He looked at her silently, wearing that same heartbreaking expression he'd had on Saturday, though it was mixed with resignation now. "You aren't changing your mind, are you." It wasn't a question.

"No," she said quietly. "You're my best friend, but that's all this can be."

"Then what about the last year?" he said, now sounding bitter. "Why did you ever agree to go out with me?"

"I'm sorry it took me so long to figure things out," said Elena, "but you were so happy, everyone else was so happy for us, and it was really fun going out with you, so it just didn't start sinking in that my feelings aren't the same until a couple of months ago. Even then I tried to fight it."

He swallowed. She watched his Adam's apple move up and down. "Then I guess there really isn't anything I can do to fix it," he said hollowly.

"I'm so sorry, Matt," said Elena. She wanted to hug him, but she doubted he would appreciate it right now.

X

College campuses were some of Damon's favorite hunting grounds. The students were always so preoccupied with getting to their classes that they never noticed when one of their fellows peeled off and followed him around the back of a building, and they were all so sleep-deprived that it seemed perfectly normal when his leftovers rejoined the populous a little more sluggish and several shades paler than usual.

He strolled over to the bulletin boards in the middle of the quad at Whitmore College and waited. Class was in session at the moment, so all the walkways of campus were mostly deserted. If he tried his patented snatch-eat-erase technique now, it'd be too conspicuous. Instead, he pulled out his phone, remembering that he still hadn't used the knowledge that Stefan had been in town last Friday against him. To his annoyance, the call merely went to voicemail after four rings. Stefan was probably out hunting squirrels or something away from his phone.

After a few more minutes, the large clock on top of the main building chimed eleven, and the quad was suddenly flooded with students. Damon glanced casually at the board next to him so he'd look more natural standing there, and one of the many flyers caught his eye.

**Big Band Swing Club **

Finals Week Shindig

_We're ending the semester with a bang!  
_Take a break from finals and join the Big Band Swing Club  
for our biggest bash of the spring!  
Come dressed in your best '40s or '50s threads.

Thursday, May 28, 7-11 p.m.  
Student Rec Center Gym  
$5 admission

A smirk curling over his lips, he snatched the flyer off the board, folded it twice, and tucked it into his inside jacket pocket. Then he turned around to resume his prowling, only for a young woman to come crashing right into him. The large pile of books and papers she was carrying flew out of her arms in every direction and she went pitching over backwards, but Damon caught her easily before she could hit the ground.

"Sorry about that," she said, face flushing red with mortification as Damon set her back on her feet. "I really should pay better attention."

"I don't mind," said Damon, the smirk swiftly returning as he looked her up and down. She had wavy honey-blonde hair, full lips, and large blue eyes—not to mention some lovely curves in her figure. She bent down to gather her things from the ground, and he stooped to help. "Where are you headed?" he asked.

"Dr. Thompson's Psych 101 class," she said. "I'm the T.A. and I get to prowl the rows looking for cheaters during the final."

"I'm headed that way too," said Damon as they stood back up, his hands spread wide as if he was amazed by the coincidence. "Mind if I walk you?"

"Sure," she said, an incredulous grin stealing over her lips and her cheeks reddening slightly, though this time not from embarrassment. She started walking and he followed her lead, employing his quick reflexes to hide the fact that he didn't actually know where her destination was.

"I'm Jenna Sommers, by the way," she said.

"Damon Salvatore," said Damon.

Jenna stopped in her tracks and looked at him with wide eyes, her pulse suddenly going a hundred beats per minute. Damon groaned inwardly. He should have realized. "You're Elena's aunt, aren't you?" he said, still affecting his pleasant air.

The fear on her face transformed at once into protective anger. "Stay away from my niece," she said coldly.

"Now why would I want to do that when your niece is such wonderful company?"

Jenna's eyes darted around the crowded quad. She was likely calculating the odds of him trying anything with so many witnesses around. "How can you be out here in the middle of the day?" she said.

"That," said Damon as he started walking again, "is for me to know and you, your sister, and your brother-in-law to pointlessly obsess over."

"What are you doing on this campus?" she demanded, hurrying to keep up with him.

"So many questions. Maybe I'm just here to learn."

Her eyes widened again. "You're looking for someone to bite, aren't you?" she hissed.

"Oh, I already found someone to bite," said Damon, flaring his eyes at her and relishing the sight of her swallowing nervously. "But since I'm fairly certain you're on vervain, it seems I will be forced to select a different vintage." He glanced around at the students going past them in every direction.

Fear flared up in Jenna's scent again, but when she spoke, she sounded furious. "You're not coming to my school and preying on the students."

"Was that a threat?" said Damon with an incredulous laugh.

"No, but this is," said Jenna, turning to face him directly. "If I catch you anywhere near here again, I'll see to it that vervain finds its way into all the drinking fountains on campus."

The next second, Damon's hand was clamped around her throat and he was slamming her against the side of a building. Her books and papers spilled out of her arms again as she struggled fruitlessly against his grip. She talked a big game, but it was obvious that she was a rookie at this stuff. She hadn't even noticed that he was leading her onto a deserted walkway where the view was blocked by trees, so there were no longer any witnesses.

"Just because I can't bite you doesn't mean I can't kill you," he said through fangs, his nose an inch away from hers. "But since you're Elena's aunt, I'll give you a free pass, so long as you stay out of my way." He released her and vanished before she could try his patience any further.

X

Miranda was in the middle of arranging an event for the historical society when she received a call from Jenna. "Excuse me for just a moment, Carol," she said to the Mayor's wife, "I need to take this."

"Of course," said Carol with a tight smile that did not conceal her impatience. All the same, Miranda smiled back and touched her arm before walking out of the Lockwoods' sitting room into the entrance hall.

"What is it, Jenna?" she asked after accepting the call.

"You'll never guess who I just ran into on campus," said Jenna. She sounded slightly out of breath.

"Who, Sheila?" said Miranda, frowning.

"No, and I tried going to her office like you asked, but she wasn't there. I think getting a hold of her during finals week might be a tall order, but I'll keep trying. But no, it was Damon Salvatore."

"What?!" said Miranda, much more loudly than she intended. She glanced around to make sure nobody was coming out to check on her, then hurriedly exited the house through the front doors and walked out onto the sprawling porch. "What was he doing there? And how was he outside in broad daylight?"

"I have no idea about the daylight thing, but as far as I could tell, he didn't have a bigger agenda than finding someone to feed on," said Jenna. She heaved a slightly shrill sigh that caused a burst of static on Miranda's end, and she seemed a little hysterical when she spoke again. "Miranda, I never thought I'd be glad to know the truth about all this stuff, but I really think I might be dead right now if I still had no idea what was going on."

"Oh, honey," said Miranda, clutching the phone tightly, wishing she could wrap her arms around her baby sister. "You made it through, and that's what matters."

"He said the only reason he wasn't going to kill me is that I'm Elena's aunt."

"Then he does want something with her," said Miranda, her worst fears confirmed.

"Look," said Jenna, her voice much steadier now. "I know I said I wanted to stay at Whitmore over the summer and let you and Grayson deal with all this without me, but I've changed my mind. If that monster is after Elena, then I'll come home. I'll do whatever you need me to do to help keep her safe."

"Easy there," said Miranda. "Just remember that even though you're a Sommers, we spell it with an 'o' and your first name isn't Buffy."

Jenna laughed. "I know, thanks."

"But I'm glad you're coming home," Miranda went on. "I'd rather have you close by. For now, though, the best thing you can do to help is to keep trying with Sheila Bennett."

"I will," said Jenna. "I've gotta go, though; I'll be late for Thompson's final."

X

Elena picked morosely at her lunch. She was sitting at the end of the table occupied by the junior varsity cheerleading squad across from a quietly sympathetic Bonnie. Caroline was holding court in the middle of the table, as usual, but neither of them was participating in the other girls' conversation. About a third of the way through the lunch period, Elena's phone buzzed. She set down her half-eaten slice of pizza and picked it up.

"Well, I think I can guess who that's from," Bonnie muttered into her milk carton when Elena immediately perked up. She kept her voice low so that Tiki and Dana sitting next to them wouldn't hear.

Elena could feel herself blushing, but Bonnie's remark couldn't reverse the effects of the new text from Damon.

_"Last chance to forfeit our contest with your dignity intact, Gilbert."_

_ "Why would I want to do that?" _she typed.

_"Because I just found us a swing ball. Thursday night, 7:00, over at Whitmore College."_

Forgetting the audience of gossipy cheerleaders to her right, Elena let out an audible gasp of delight. Tiki and Dana immediately looked around at her, and Caroline leaned forward so she could see her from her spot three seats over. "Sorry," said Elena, casting around wildly for a cover story that would get all the eyes off her. Nothing occurred to her, but Bonnie came to the rescue.

"I'm going to the bathroom," she said. "See you guys later."

Elena got up as well, and thankfully no one else followed them. Still, she cringed when she thought she heard the words "Matt" and "breakup" come out of Caroline's mouth just before she was actually out of earshot. Once she and Bonnie were in the hall outside the cafeteria, she handed over her phone so Bonnie could read the text chat. She watched Bonnie's face closely for her reactions as she read, and was gratified when she saw her lips twitch in amusement.

"Okay," said Bonnie, passing the phone back, "if you seriously don't want to date this guy, then I think I might."

Elena shot her an indignant look.

"Don't give me that," said Bonnie. "From everything you've told me about him and all those chats you've shown me, he sounds like a really fun guy. And you two constantly flirt already, and this whole competition thing sounds like a really thin cover story one of you is telling yourself so you can spend all this time together without admitting you're dating."

"No, Bonnie, come on," said Elena, a bit of a whine in her voice. "We're just friends. How many times do I have to say it?"

"Enough times to convince yourself, maybe?" said Bonnie, eyebrows raised knowingly. Elena didn't respond to this, so Bonnie went on. "Look, you and Matt didn't work because you were friends who tried too hard to date. Maybe for you and Damon, it's the other way around and just being friends is what won't work."

"Even if you're right," said Elena, "I'm going to keep trying to just be his friend at least until it's been enough time since I broke up with Matt that it wouldn't be weird. And hopefully until I can convince my parents that they're being paranoid and ridiculous about him." She looked down. "And until I'm absolutely sure he doesn't see his dead ex when he looks at me," she finished quietly.

Bonnie reached out and laid a comforting hand on her arm. "Do you get the feeling that he does when you're around him now?"

"Not really," said Elena, shrugging. "But I wonder. He's definitely not over her."

X

Elena was sitting down in her next class when she realized that she still hadn't confirmed with Damon that she could go to the dance. Her French teacher, Madame Baillie, was strict about cell phones in class, but there were still a few minutes before the bell, so she was willing to risk it.

_"I'd love to go, even if it takes me months to catch you up on points. Only thing is, I don't actually know how to swing dance."_

She didn't expect a quick reply, especially as she hadn't given one herself, but her phone was buzzing with his next text within seconds anyway. _"Well if you come over to my place tomorrow, I can fix that."_

Elena grinned and bit her lip. The tardy bell was going to ring any moment now, so she quickly typed, _"Okay, I'll see you after I get out of school tomorrow."_ She hit "send" and dropped her phone back into her bag just as Madame Baillie said "Bonjour, classe!"

"Bonjour, madame!" she chorused along with the rest of the students.

X

Elena normally stayed late after school, hanging out with her friends and getting help from her teachers when she needed it, so she knew her mom wouldn't ask questions as long as she was home in time for dinner. On Tuesday, therefore, she left as quickly as she could and drove straight to the Salvatore boarding house. She parked next to Damon's car, which now sat in the driveway, and walked up to the oversized front door. A few seconds after she knocked, Damon opened it.

"Hey," she said, smiling.

"Hey back," said Damon, flashing his trademark smirk. He stepped aside so she could enter, which she did, looking around eagerly at her new surroundings.

"So is today the day I get the tour?" she asked.

"If you want it to be," he said, shutting the door.

"Well, you can either show me around in person, or I'll just wait until you take a bathroom break and go exploring on my own. It's up to you."

"Guided tour it is," he said, amused. He swept a hand out towards the rest of the house. "This way, ladies and gentlemen."

"I hope I didn't park in your uncle's spot," said Elena as she followed him further into the house.

"Doesn't matter," said Damon. "He won't be back until later."

The whole place had rich, dark wood paneling on the walls, which was interrupted here and there with a heavily laden bookcase. The furniture was antique, the hardwood floors were covered in elegant rugs, and there was a strong color theme of crimson and brown. It looked incredible. Damon led Elena from the front hall into a vast room with a vaulted ceiling, an enormous fireplace, and a balcony where the second floor looked out over it.

"This is your living room?" she gasped. Her gaze was drawn to the paintings on the walls, all of which appeared to be originals. She couldn't imagine how much they must have cost.

"Living room, parlor—for today's purposes, ballroom," said Damon, sounding like he was too used to all the grandeur to be particularly impressed.

"I feel like I just walked into the nineteen twenties or something," said Elena.

"Nineteen teens," Damon corrected, "but I can see how you could make that mistake."

"I'm surprised this place isn't always full of customers," said Elena, leaving his side to explore the room a bit. "It's way better than any hotel I've ever seen."

"I guess most people get a creepy vibe from it for some reason," said Damon. "But of course you'd be the exception, O tamer of ravens." Elena rolled her eyes at him. He smirked and waved her back over. "Come on, I'll show you the library."

They made their way gradually through all the rooms on the ground floor. After the library, he showed her the kitchen, dining room, study, and sitting room.

"Do you play?" Elena asked, gesturing at the magnificent grand piano in one corner of the sitting room.

"Not often," said Damon. "It probably needs to be tuned."

He headed back towards the parlor and she followed. "Any chance I'll get to hear you play sometime?" she asked hopefully.

"Maybe," he said. "If you're very, very lucky." He walked over to a cabinet that housed an impressive vinyl collection.

"So," she said, getting down to business. "I'm guessing you've swing danced before, if you can give me a private lesson."

"I've done every dance invented since the Civil War," said Damon matter-of-factly. But then he made a face. "Well, disco and hip-hop, not so much." He pulled out several records and moved to a record player that looked nearly as old as the house itself. "You'd think they'd have come up with something better than that to follow swing." He shook his head in disgust and dropped a record onto the turntable.

Elena giggled. "You say that like you were there when it happened. Why did you learn so many dances, anyway?"

"Isn't it obvious?" he asked, lowering the needle and catching one of her hands to spin her into him as the first few jazzy notes played. "I did it to impress the ladies."

"Good strategy," Elena chuckled. Before their proximity could start wreaking havoc with her insides, she pushed a hand against his chest to put some distance between them. "Okay, so what am I supposed to be doing with my feet?"

"Quite a lot," said Damon. "I'm going to show you at least four different steps."

"Bring it on," said Elena. "If I can make the varsity cheerleading squad, I can learn this."

"Well okay then," said Damon. "First there's the Charleston step…."

He spent the next half-hour showing her touch-steps, triple-steps, and kick-ball changes, and then how to improvise with them, all while the record player kept playing music from the likes of Glenn Miller and the Andrews sisters. The rhythm of the music made the dancing come almost naturally. Once she had the steps down, they started adding some flare to the dancing, including dips, jumps, and spins. It was fast-paced enough and the music was lively enough that even though she was alone with Damon in this huge house, Elena never felt overwhelmed like she had when she'd tried to kiss him on her couch at home. In fact, they were laughing and joking and having such a good time dancing all around the parlor that she was shocked when she caught sight of a grandfather clock and realized that it was already after five.

"Crap!" she said. "I have to go! Dinner's at six!"

"Your parents haven't changed their minds, have they?" said Damon.

"Nope," said Elena grumpily. "And they still won't tell me why, either."

"But you still don't care," he said, smirking.

"I can make my own decisions," said Elena. "You haven't given me any reason not to trust you, so until my parents trust _me_ with _their _reasons, you're stuck with me." From his expression, her implication that she trusted him seemed to surprise him a great deal, though he wasn't displeased. This only hardened her resolve not to sever the acquaintance even more.

A second later, his smirk was back. "Stuck with you, huh?" he said as she grabbed her purse off the couch where she'd dropped it.

"Yep," she said. "So I'll see you on Thursday?"

"Six forty-five sharp," he said. "Just tell me where I should pick you up to not blow your cover."

Elena smiled and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. He blinked down at her, looking baffled. "I know I already told you my stance on beautiful girls kissing me," he said, "but what was that for?"

"For the dance lesson," said Elena sweetly, clasping her hands together behind her back. "I haven't had that much fun in a long time."

He grinned. "Well, in that case," he said as they started moving towards the door, "I can't wait to see how you reward me after we spend Thursday night showing up all the college kids."

"Bye, Damon," said Elena, rolling her eyes while still smiling—an increasingly familiar combination where he was concerned—and trying to ignore the butterflies in her stomach as she left the boarding house.

She was in trouble. The shaky ground on which her determination to keep things platonic between them rested seemed to have eroded away completely while they danced together. As soon as she was in her car, she pulled out her phone. She would call Bonnie first, then Caroline. She had made up her mind, but she was going to need help if her plan would succeed.

X

Grayson had just gotten out of his last appointment on Wednesday morning and was about to go out on his lunch break when his secretary caught him at the door. "Dr. Gilbert," she said, "There's a Sheila Bennett asking to speak with you on line two. Should I tell her to call back later?"

"No, I'll take the call," he said. "Thank you, Laura. You can go ahead and take your lunch now; I'll watch the phones for you."

"Yes, sir," she said.

As soon as she was out the door, Grayson went into his office and picked up the phone. "Sheila," he said. "I'm glad to hear from you."

"Your sister-in-law just cornered me on the way out of a thesis defense committee. What's this about, Grayson?"

"Damon Salvatore is back in Mystic Falls," he said.

"And what am I supposed to do about that?" said Sheila. "Damon Salvatore might be a vampire, but he's been protecting my family since eighteen sixty-five. I don't enjoy being in his debt, but if you expect me to go against him, you'd better have a damn good reason."

"We think he's after Elena," said Grayson.

There was a pause. "Are you sure?"

"No," he said. "But I want to be."

Sheila sighed heavily. "I always knew Mikael wouldn't be the last of that sweet child's troubles. What do you need?"

"I would just stake him myself and be done with it, but there could be more of them. His brother, more Originals—I don't know. We need to find out who else we're dealing with."

"Mmhm. Well, tomorrow evening after five o'clock is the soonest I can help you get information out of vampires, but I have one condition."

"Name it."

"You and your family have always known about us Bennett witches, and I believe that goes all the way back to Emily Bennett and Johnathan Gilbert."

"It does."

"Then you might be able to help me recover Emily's spellbook. It's been missing since her death, but there's a chance it wasn't destroyed."

"Done," said Grayson at once. "Miranda and I will meet you outside the Salvatore boarding house tomorrow at six-thirty."

"I'll see you then."

X

It was Thursday morning, and Damon lay sprawled over one of the leather couches in the parlor, rereading _Call of the Wild_ for about the dozenth time. He couldn't think of a time when he'd been in a better mood. Zach had suddenly remembered an endless list of "errands" he had to run, even though the boarding house was now mysteriously closed to guests until further notice (even the maid had stopped showing up to clean), so there were only so many legitimate errands he could run. Damon found it all highly amusing. He had also been dining very well the past few days, specifically on sorority girls from Whitmore College, purely to spite Jenna Sommers. And last but not least, there were his plans with Elena for the evening.

He'd forgotten how good it could be to have a friend—but then, he'd never really had one like her. He was going to miss their banter once her parents finally clued her in properly and she started towing the Gilbert family line.

All of a sudden, he heard music start playing from the direction of his bedroom. _"Teenage wasteland! It's only teenage wasteland. Teenage Wasteland! Oh yeah…"_

"What the—?" said Damon, perplexed. But then he remembered. "Oh, right. Stefan's ringtone." He'd forgotten about picking "Baba O'Riley" for that. He'd done it years ago, as soon as personalized ringtones became a thing, but this was the first time Stefan had actually called him.

He marked his page and vamp-sped up to his room, where he picked up his phone off his nightstand. "Hello, brother," he said.

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end. "Damon?"

"The one and only."

"_You're_ the one who called me the other day?"

"Yep," said Damon. "I was hurt when you didn't answer. Were you too busy holding funerals for all the Bambis you've killed lately to keep track of your missed calls?"

"Why did you call me? It's been fifteen years since we had any contact, Damon. I don't even know how you have my number to begin with."

"I have my sources. And as to why I called, a little birdie told me you were in good old Mystic Falls last Friday, which is a _staggering_ coincidence, because that happens to be where I've been ever since."

"_What?_"

"Well, okay, the bird wasn't all that little."

"What are you doing in Mystic Falls?" said Stefan, his voice rising as he lost patience. This was just too much fun.

"Why is everyone so interested in what I'm up to?" said Damon flippantly. "You, Zach, various grad students. Honestly, it's getting a little intrusive."

"Answer me!" Stefan shouted.

"Why so paranoid, Stefan? Can't a guy visit his hometown every fifty years or so without raising so many questions?"

"The last time you were in Mystic Falls, you killed four people there, including Joseph!"

"Ah, Joseph," said Damon nostalgically. "You know, these last few generations of Salvatores have been incredibly unwelcoming. I blame Dad's genes."

"If you do anything to Zach—"

"You'll what?" Damon sneered. "We both know that as long as you're on the bunny diet, you're all bark and no bite—and even the bark part is pretty pathetic—, but that if you bulk up on the human blood, it would only make _you_ more likely than me to kill dear little Zach. Besides, threats work better in person, even when they're the idle kind."

"Please, Damon, just tell me what you're doing there."

"What I _should_ be doing is looking for something to wear this evening. You don't mind if I raid your closet, do you? If one of us still has anything from the fifties, it definitely isn't me."

"Why, do you have a hot date or something?" said Stefan flatly.

"What I have is a hot _friend_. I mean, really, she could even give Katherine a run for her money in that department, but it's strictly platonic."

"You don't have friends. Who is this girl and what are you doing with her?"

"Let's see. The highlight reel includes bird watching, _The Princess Bride_, and swing dancing," said Damon. He knew Stefan wouldn't believe him and would automatically assume the worst instead, which was somehow even funnier when he meant no harm. At this rate, Stefan would be back in Mystic Falls before the week was out to try to protect the innocent townsfolk from his wrath, which was absolutely fine by Damon. Between having fun with Elena and messing with Stefan's head, comet day would be here in no time at all.

"Well, it's been great catching up, baby bro," he said before Stefan could say anything else, "but I really do need to go find that outfit." With that, he hung up, even though he had no intention of wearing anything but his normal clothes to this dance. He'd already lived through that era; he didn't need to revisit it with his wardrobe.

X

"What do you think?" said Elena, emerging from Bonnie's bathroom for what felt like the hundredth time and doing a little spin, making the skirt of her dress flare out around her. This one was a dark burgundy '50s halter-style swing dress with little black polka dots. It hit her just below the knees, and together with a pair of black flats that would give her no trouble on a dance floor, it was probably her favorite outfit of the many she'd tried.

"I love it," said Bonnie.

"I don't know," said Caroline dubiously. "It's cute and fifties-y, but if you're really planning to grab this guy at the end of the dance and kiss him, then shouldn't you wear something sexier that'll really get his attention?"

"Caroline, the point isn't to draw all the attention to my appearance. I happen to look just like his ex, so being flashy could backfire. I just want to be cute and in theme and have fun with him like I have been since we met. I want to feel like me, not some ghost from his past."

"But you _do _want to kiss him?" Caroline pressed. "You're really done with all this obviously in denial 'just friends' talk?"

"Yes," said Elena. "It's been almost a whole week since I broke up with Matt—which had _nothing_ to do with wanting to be with Damon instead, by the way, because I actually _meant_ that 'just friends' talk and I already knew things weren't working with Matt before I even met Damon."

"If you say so," said Caroline, holding up her hands.

"So is that the dress, then?" said Bonnie.

"Yeah, it is," said Elena, doing another twirl. She loved the way the skirt billowed when she spun, which would be even more fun on a dance floor with Damon.

"Okay, then let's do the hair," said Bonnie, and the three girls went back into the bathroom together. Caroline hopped up on the counter to watch and Elena sat down on a stool while Bonnie went to work with a curling iron.

"You know, since Damon is older than high school age," said Elena, "if I start dating him, it doesn't have to be gossip fodder, because nobody will see us together at school." She looked pointedly at Caroline.

"Aw, come on! You mean I have to keep this a secret?" she whined. "It's such a good story!"

"But you know it'll get back around to Matt," said Bonnie, "and I'm sure Elena doesn't want to rub it in his face that she's already moving on when it's probably going to take him much longer."

"But what if knowing that she's moving on is exactly what he needs to help him move on too?" said Caroline. "Isn't it better to rip off the Band-aid in case he's still holding out hope?"

"I think I did enough Band-aid ripping with the way I broke up with him," said Elena. "I don't want Matt getting any wrong ideas about why I did it." Caroline opened her mouth again, but Elena talked over her. "_And_ my parents banned me from seeing Damon, remember? So _please_ don't tell anyone, Caroline. I can't risk it getting back to them before I can talk sense into them."

"Okay," said Caroline grudgingly. "But you'd better tell me all the details to make up for forcing me into a vow of silence."

"Deal," said Elena, laughing.

"Whoa, hold still," said Bonnie. "I don't want to burn you."

"Sorry," said Elena, trying to be as statuesque as possible while Bonnie gave the front of her hair that classic fifties wave.

"So do you think it's his age that has your parents all Nazi-like about him?" said Caroline.

"Well that wouldn't be very fair, considering that _they_ started dating when Dad was twenty-four and Mom was still a senior in high school," said Elena. "But no, they were fine with him until I introduced him by name, and _then_ they got all tense, but they still waited until he was actually gone from the house before they full-on freaked out."

"That's weird," said Caroline, frowning. "If they're so anti-Damon, why didn't they just tell _him_ that he couldn't see you? Is he a wanted felon and they're too scared to challenge him directly or something?"

"I'm pretty sure your mom would be involved if he was a wanted felon," said Elena.

"Hey, for all I know, she could be," said Caroline. "It's not like I'm always asking Mom for details about sheriff work."

"He's _not_ a wanted felon," said Elena. "The whole town would know if a founding family member was a wanted felon."

It took Bonnie about ten more minutes to finish Elena's hair. "I wish I was going to this dance," Caroline sighed wistfully as Bonnie was applying a few last touches.

"You could always organize a big band swing club for our school," Bonnie pointed out.

"Don't tempt me," said Caroline. "I'm organizing enough things as it is already."

"There," said Bonnie. "All done."

"Final verdict?" said Elena, standing up and doing one last spin for them.

"You look amazing, Elena. Damon's going to love it."

"I had my doubts about the dress at first, but I think you look fabulous," said Caroline, "and so help me God, I'm going to make sure that one of the decade dances next year is forties or fifties even if I have to kill someone for it. The girls on this year's dance committee were idiots. Thirties and _nineties_? Really? Depression era and grunge? Ugh! What were they thinking?"

"You still went to both dances, Care," said Bonnie dryly.

"So? _Their_ bad taste in decades is not going to stop _me_ from dancing with hot upperclassmen," said Caroline loftily. "Anyway," she added, flipping open her phone to check the time, "speaking of committees, I need to run. The Mystic Falls Beautification Committee is meeting in half an hour to plan the Fourth of July decorations for Main Street. I'll see you later. Just remember that you promised me details."

"Have fun," said Elena.

"How long do you think she's actually going to be able to keep this a secret?" said Bonnie after Caroline had left the room.

"Hopefully at least a week," said Elena. "If we keep a close eye on her, we might be able to keep her from spilling until school's out, and then word won't be able to travel as fast anyway."

Her phone buzzed where it was sitting on the counter, and she picked it up. The new text was from Damon.

_"See you in twenty. I hope you're ready to dance until you drop."_

_ "Oh, I'm ready," _she replied. She looked up and grinned at Bonnie.

"You've got it bad, Elena," she said with a bit of a laugh in her voice. "I can't wait to meet this guy."

"You will when he gets here in twenty minutes," said Elena excitedly.

But twenty minutes passed, and there was no sign of Damon's car on the road to Bonnie's house. The girls had moved to sit by the window in the front room so they'd see it as soon as it got close.

"Are you sure you gave him good directions to get here?" asked Bonnie when 6:50 arrived without him.

"Yeah, he said he knew where it was," said Elena. She was starting to get anxious.

"Text him again," said Bonnie. "See what's up."

"Okay." She pulled out her phone. _"Hey, everything okay?"_ she typed._ "Your impeccable punctuality record is starting to look a little shaky. :P"_

By the time the little clock on the mantel struck seven, Elena was worried enough to start pacing. "What if something happened to him, Bonnie?" she asked fretfully. "What if he got in a wreck on his way over here?"

"I don't know," said Bonnie. She looked just as worried as Elena felt. "I would say he's probably just standing you up, but I kind of have a really bad feeling."

"What, like, normal bad feeling, or psychic bad feeling?" said Elena. Bonnie had been half-jokingly claiming psychic abilities for a few months now, but it had only ever been little things that could easily be waved off.

In response, Bonnie only gave her a grimly meaningful look.

"I can't take this," said Elena, grabbing her purse and heading for the door. "I'm going to the boarding house to make sure he's okay."

"I'm coming too," said Bonnie.

"Wait, what?" said Elena, looking back at her, her hand hovering over the doorknob.

"If everything _is_ okay and he's just a little delayed, I'm still your alibi for this evening," Bonnie reminded her. "I'll drive your car back here and then you and Damon can head off to the dance."

"Good thinking," said Elena.

To their intense relief, they didn't see any signs of a car accident on the drive to the Salvatore boarding house, but they didn't see any signs of his perfectly functional car either. They pulled into the driveway of the boarding house at about 7:10.

"What's my parents car doing here?" said Elena, frowning at the little gray car parked in the same spot she had used on Tuesday. "Did they find out about tonight?"

"Maybe," said Bonnie. Her eyes were fixed on a different car. "But if they did, then why is Grams's car here too?"

"What?" said Elena. Now that she looked at it, she realized that Bonnie was right. "What's going on?"

"I don't know," said Bonnie. She unbuckled her seatbelt. "But let's go find out."

They both got out of the car and made their way up to the front door, which was a few inches ajar. Bonnie definitely wasn't the only one with a bad feeling now.

* * *

Teehee, aren't cliffhangers fun? What are Bonnie and Elena about to walk in on? Here's the dress Elena's wearing in that last scene, by the way: modcloth DOT com SLASH shop SLASH dresses SLASH budding-starlet-dress-in-dots

The chapter title is a reference to an awesome Andrews sisters song. If you're not familiar, go look it up. I think my favorite characters to write in this chapter were Sheila, Caroline, and Jenna, although the bit where Damon taunts Stefan over the phone was probably my favorite scene to write overall. Also, I should mention that I did the math on Grayson and Miranda's ages and realized that they couldn't possibly have been high school sweethearts like I wrote in chapter two. Miranda is eight years older than Jenna, who was 29 in 2009, and Grayson was already a practicing doctor when Elena was born in '92 (when Miranda was 20). The very youngest Grayson could've been when Elena was born was 26, and if he and Miranda had been trying really hard to have kids already, then they probably got married right after Miranda got out of high school and just jumped at the chance to adopt Isobel's baby when John brought her to them two years later. Gah. Timelines. Anyway. I hope you liked the chapter, and please let me know what you thought!


	5. John 15:13

New chapter! I know I left you guys dangling off a cliff with the last one, so I'll save the longer author's note for the end. Enjoy!

* * *

Damon was about to go grab the keys to the Camaro and head out to pick up Elena when he heard the front door open. "Finally decide to stop dodging me, Zach?" he said, but when he turned to face the door, he froze. "You are not Zach," he observed unnecessarily.

The person framed rather dramatically in the doorway was a thin black woman with curly, chin-length hair. "My name is Sheila Bennett," she said, arching one eyebrow.

"And to what do I owe the honor of a house call from a Bennett witch?" said Damon, spreading his arms wide in a mocking imitation of a gracious welcome.

"That would be to whom," another voice corrected him, and Grayson and Miranda Gilbert appeared in the doorway on either side of Sheila. "We asked her to come here with us."

"Why would you do that?"

"We'll be asking you the questions, vampire," said Miranda. "And you have one chance to answer them nicely."

"Or what?" he said, his lip curling. All of a sudden, his skull felt like it was going to explode. He groaned and sank to his knees, clutching his head in both hands.

"Or _I'll_ be the one asking them," said Sheila.

"I can kill all three of you in under a second," Damon spat, but the pain only intensified to such a degree that he couldn't stop himself from crying out in agony.

"Not if you can't move," said Sheila.

X

Zach arrived back at the boarding house at five after seven. Damon hadn't made any new threats for a few days now, nor had he brought up the subject of vervain, but Zach didn't plan to give him the chance. He had rented a small RV and would be hitting the road with it at the earliest possible opportunity. Then Damon and Grayson could settle their little power struggle without dragging him into the middle of it.

When he pulled into the drive, he was surprised to see two more cars parked there in addition to Damon's Camaro. He thought one of them might be Grayson's, but couldn't place the other one. For a second, he froze, indecisive, but then he reached into the backseat of his car and pulled out his crossbow. He knew Damon would kill him in a heartbeat if he found out he even had it, but he felt it was worth the risk, which was also why he had the vervain.

The only reason he could imagine that Grayson was here at the boarding house at the same time as Damon was that he had come to kill him. And if some kind of showdown was going on between them, then Zach would do whatever he could to help. Maybe after this was over, he would finally be free to pursue the life he'd always wanted.

X

Elena and Bonnie slipped cautiously inside the boarding house, but they hadn't taken two steps beyond the threshold before the sound of someone yelling in pain reached their ears.

"Damon!" said Elena under her breath, and she took off running, a very alarmed Bonnie hurrying in her wake. Once they were actually in the parlor, they had a clear view of what was going on, and they froze in their tracks as they tried to understand what they were looking at.

As indicated by their cars in the drive, Elena's parents and Bonnie's grandmother were all there. They were standing in a V formation in front of Damon, who seemed to be suspended about a foot off the ground, his back against the wall by the fireplace. Sheila's hand was outstretched towards him, and as Elena and Bonnie watched, he gave another cry of pain, though they could see no sign of what was causing it.

"Is that the best you've got?" he said, glaring contemptuously at the three of them.

"Not even close," said Grayson. Elena realized with a thrill of foreboding that her father was brandishing an iron poker. "I can drag this out for days if you decide not to cooperate."

"Then you'd better get started," said Damon. "'Cause no matter what you do to me, I'm not telling you a damn thing."

"We'll see about that," said Grayson, and he drove the poker into Damon's stomach.

Elena screamed. Grayson, Sheila, and Miranda all turned to look at her and Bonnie in surprise.

"Elena!" said Grayson and Miranda together, while at the same time, Sheila called out, "Bonnie!"

Meanwhile, Damon slid to the ground with a groan behind them. "I guess the game is up," he chuckled, pulling the poker out of his gut. "Sorry, Elena, but your parents were right about me." He made as if to lunge at Sheila with the poker, only to drop it to the floor, his hands flying up to his head as he let out another yell of pain.

"Miranda, get the girls out of here!" said Grayson.

Miranda hurried over to them at once. "Mom, what's going on?" cried Elena, her eyes still fixed on Damon. "What are you doing to him?"

"It's okay, sweetie," she said, putting one hand on Elena's shoulder and the other on Bonnie's. "I can explain everything, but not here. Let's go."

Elena was still too bewildered to do anything but comply numbly. She started to turn around when she noticed someone standing in the doorway that led to the darkened dining room. It was Zach Salvatore. He was holding a crossbow and was aiming it directly at Damon's heart.

She didn't stop to think, she just ran, knocking her mother's hand aside. She vaguely heard her mother and Bonnie calling after her in surprise, but she didn't stop. All she knew was that she had to reach Damon before Zach could pull that trigger. She was past her dad and Sheila and only a foot or so away from Damon when there was the quietest click, twang, and hiss from the direction of the dining room. The next second, Elena jerked slightly. Her eyes locked with Damon's, which were round with shock, and then she was falling forward into his arms, her ears ringing with the fading sounds of four voices yelling her name in horror.

X

Bonnie stared uncomprehendingly at the narrow strip of wood protruding out of her best friend's back next to her shoulder blade, at the trickle of blood leaking out around it and dripping down onto the fabric of her dress. The next second, she was running forward, screaming Elena's name, her voice mingling with those of her grams and Elena's parents. She had almost reached Elena when a pair of arms caught her and held her tight. "No, Bonnie, you have to stay back," said her grams's voice in her ear, holding fast though Bonnie struggled to get free, sobbing and protesting incoherently as she watched Elena slump limply against the unfamiliar black-haired man.

After a moment, Sheila succeeded in quelling Bonnie's struggles, and Bonnie turned and buried herself in the comforting embrace, her mind reeling. From this position, she watched Elena's dad rush across the room and pull a protesting Zach Salvatore out of the shadows of a doorway by the front of his shirt. "You shot my daughter!" he shouted in Zach's face.

"I was aiming for my uncle!"

"You were aiming to _kill_. I still need him alive!"

"I don't give a damn what _you_ need, Grayson," said Zach, throwing Grayson's hands off him. "He's been ruining my family's lives since before I was born! I saw a chance to be free of him and I took it."

"And you hit Elena instead!" Grayson's fist collided with Zach's face so hard that he went spinning around and crumpled to the ground in a heap.

"Grayson!" cried another voice. It was Elena's mom. Bonnie turned to look at her instead, then followed her anguished gaze back to Elena and the black-haired man—Damon, evidently. Bonnie took one look at Damon's face and let out a scream. The whites of his eyes were turning a deep, blood red, and dark veins were creeping down from his lower lids onto the tops of his cheeks. He switched Elena's weight to support it all with one arm and bared his teeth, which had elongated into vicious fangs. What _was_ he?

Before Damon could get those fangs anywhere near Elena, Sheila's arms tensed around Bonnie, and then he was clutching his head with his free hand and groaning. "Would you lay off, witch?" he snarled, still holding Elena tightly with his other arm. "I'm trying to help her!"

"Let her go!" said Miranda, who didn't seem to have heard him.

"We have to get her to the hospital," said Grayson. "She looks like she's already in shock."

"You'll never make it there in time," said Damon angrily, still grimacing at whatever Sheila was doing to him. "One of her lungs is punctured. I can hear it in her breathing."

"I'm a doctor," said Grayson, "I can help her!"

"How? With the fully equipped operating theater conveniently located in the next room?" Damon demanded. "The only one here who has a real shot at saving her life is _me_, unless the witch's voodoo is good for something besides melting my brain."

"Do it," said Miranda. She spoke quietly, but the hostile atmosphere evaporated at her words. Sheila stopped doing whatever painful thing she was doing to Damon and Grayson's posture relaxed. Damon locked gazes with Miranda and nodded once, then sank into a crouch so that Elena was lying almost flat along the floor, her torso supported across his knee and the arm he'd been using to hold her. He raised his other wrist to his mouth and bit down sharply.

"What's going on, Grams?" Bonnie asked in a strained whisper.

"I'll explain everything later, baby," said Sheila.

When Damon pressed his bloody wrist to Elena's lips, Bonnie let out a horrified squeak, but when nobody else seemed surprised, the worst of her shock slowly began to ebb away. She was struck by the look on Damon's face, which had now lost its demonic appearance. Though she had been as certain as the adults a moment ago that Damon was going to use those wicked fangs of his to hurt Elena, nobody looking at him now could deny that his expression was one of deep concern.

At first, he had to tip Elena's head back so the blood would run down her throat, but then Bonnie saw the muscles of her neck begin to contract rhythmically as she swallowed on her own. Damon shifted the hand supporting her head so that he could pull out the crossbow bolt. It clattered to the floor, covered in Elena's blood. Bonnie looked at the wound, but to her astonishment, it closed before her eyes. Damon swiped his thumb over the place it had been, then pulled his wrist away from Elena's mouth. Elena didn't open her eyes, but she did mumble something indistinct and move vaguely closer to Damon. She looked like she was merely sleeping now.

"There," said Damon, stroking a few stray hairs out of Elena's face. Bonnie noticed that the wound in his wrist was gone too. "She's going to be fine now."

"Oh, thank God!" cried Miranda. Bonnie looked over at her and saw Grayson put his arm around her.

"You were never any threat to her at all, were you?" said Sheila.

"Of course I wasn't," Damon snapped. "She's my friend." Bonnie thought she could see a mixture of surprise and awe in his face as he said it.

"If that's really true, then you'll let us take her home so she can rest," said Grayson.

"What, saving her life wasn't proof enough for you?" said Damon, scowling at him.

"Everything she thought she knew about the world is going to change tonight," said Miranda. "She should be somewhere safe and familiar for that."

For a few seconds, Damon only continued to glare, but then he nodded jerkily and scooped Elena into his arms. They all walked to the entrance hall, then back outside, Miranda leading the way. She opened the back door of Elena's car and Damon gently laid her across the seat, buckling the middle seatbelt around her waist.

"You take her home," said Grayson. "I still need to discuss a few things with him."

Miranda looked uneasy at this, but Bonnie saw Grayson flash the big black ring he wore at her, which for some reason seemed to quell her fears. She kissed him briefly before getting into the driver's seat. Elena had left the keys in the ignition.

"You should take Bonnie home, Sheila," said Grayson once Miranda had started to pull out of the drive.

Sheila nodded, and Bonnie followed her quietly to her car.

X

Damon didn't think he was ever going to forget the look on Elena's face in those seconds between the crossbow bolt hitting her and her collapsing into his arms. Though her eyes had gone wide and glassy and blood had begun to trickle from her slightly parted lips, there had been a flicker of something like relief on her face—relief that she had made it to him in time.

Even if Sheila Bennett hadn't stopped trying to make his brain explode, he would've found some way to get his blood into her system. If it had been the very last thing he ever did, he would've ensured that saving him wasn't the last thing _she_ ever did.

This realization rocked him to his core. Elena Gilbert's life was more important to him than his own. How had that happened? And yet, as strange and frightening as the idea was, he could not regret it.

Under any other circumstances, the man who had orchestrated his torture and interrogation would not have lived to see the end of the night, but as Miranda Gilbert drove away with Elena, closely followed by Sheila Bennett and her granddaughter, Damon found that he had no immediate desire to do Grayson Gilbert harm. It seemed, after all, that everything he'd done tonight had been born out of a desire to protect his daughter. Damon couldn't fault that. So when Grayson followed him back into the boarding house a minute later, he didn't stop him, and when he reached the bar in the parlor, he poured two glasses instead of one.

They both drank their bourbon in silence, during which Damon noted with a flash of anger that Zach must have recovered from whatever Grayson did to him and used their time outside to make himself scarce. Oh well. He could still kill him later. The longer he tried to hide, the longer Damon would make his death last.

"So," said Grayson as he set his empty glass down on the table. "If you aren't in Mystic Falls because of my daughter, then why _are_ you here?"

"Why would you jump to the conclusion that I came here because of Elena?" Damon shot back. "I mean, an assumption like that is either really arrogant or really paranoid."

Grayson eyed him closely for a moment, looking like he was having a rather intense internal debate. His gaze traveled to the bloody crossbow bolt lying near the fireplace where Damon had dropped it. Somehow, this seemed to make up his mind. "It wouldn't have been the first time," he said darkly.

"What do you mean?" said Damon.

"A very old, very powerful vampire came looking for her when she was just a little girl," said Grayson, staring into the fireplace as though not really seeing it. "He would've killed her if he'd gotten his hands on her, but my wife's best friend, Sheila Bennett's daughter, managed to neutralize him. Nothing else has happened since, but we knew it was only a matter of time."

"Why would someone like that come after Elena?" said Damon, utterly perplexed. Considering her resemblance to Katherine, he could maybe understand if any of Katherine's enemies who'd missed the memo about the fire in eighteen sixty-five mistook Elena for her and attacked her if they ran into her, but why attack her as a small child, before the resemblance was even obvious? Why actually _go looking _for her in the first place?

"You haven't answered my question yet," said Grayson.

Damon's eyes narrowed. He poured them each another glass of bourbon and took a drink of his, but Grayson left his own untouched.

"I came back for Katherine."

"Katherine," Grayson repeated. "Katherine Pierce? But she's dead. She died with the rest of the vampires when Fell's Church burned to the ground in the Battle of Willow Creek." He said this forcefully, as though daring Damon to challenge these facts, but apprehension and doubt showed on his face.

"You know, I never understood why that was the Founders' big plan," said Damon, enjoying Grayson's agitation as he stalled on giving him the information he wanted. "Throwing a bunch of vampires into a building and then trusting that the flames will kill them, leaving behind only stone and ashes that nobody with the forensics of eighteen sixty-five could be sure contained any actual vampire remains…. Why couldn't they just have staked each one individually as they subdued them with vervain?"

Damon watched the truth dawn in Grayson's eyes. "They survived?" he said. He looked like the horror of this revelation might knock him off his feet.

"Only in the strictest sense," said Damon. "Thanks to Katherine's friend Emily, as soon as they were locked in that church, they escaped into a tomb underneath it, and Emily's spell sealed them inside, protecting them."

"And you want to get Katherine back out," said Grayson. He frowned. "Why wait nearly a century and a half?"

"Because the spell that seals the vampires inside will only be breakable after the comet Emily used to bind it in eighteen sixty-five passes again."

"Which will be…?"

"This September."

Silence fell again, and Damon took another swig of bourbon. "It's funny; the first time I saw Elena, there was just one second when I thought Katherine was already free." As elated as he had been in that second to see his long lost love again, he was glad now that it hadn't been her. If Katherine _had_ been free all this time, but never came looking for him and instead let him wait so long to rescue her like the world's biggest chump….

"What are you talking about?" said Grayson.

"What," said Damon, "are you telling me that even though you knew what I am and have the Bennett witches in your pocket, you're not aware of the fact that your daughter is an exact carbon copy of Katherine Pierce?"

Grayson's eyes widened and the color drained out of his face. He picked up his glass at last and emptied it in one swallow. "Getting into that tomb won't be easy," he said, rolling the empty glass between his fingers. "If the rest of the Council finds out what you are—"

"You mean they don't already know?" Damon interrupted.

Grayson arched an eyebrow and set his glass down. "_They_ don't have access to Johnathan Gilbert's journals. But as I was saying, if they find out, you'll be lucky to leave Mystic Falls with your own life, let alone Katherine's."

Damon looked at him suspiciously. "Why does it sound like you're about to make me an offer I can't refuse?"

"Not an offer," said Grayson. "A deal. And whether or not you can refuse depends on how much you care about the other twenty-six vampires in that tomb."

"I don't give a crap about any of them," said Damon. "I just want Katherine."

"In that case, I will do everything in my power to help you get that tomb open, and I think I can even get Sheila on board as well."

"How?" said Damon skeptically.

"She said she's in your debt for what you've done for her family over the years—"

"And she thought making my brain dribble out my ears was a good way to repay me for that?"

"Like Miranda and me, she thought you were a threat to Elena," said Grayson. "She wants to be free of the debt, and she wants Emily Bennett's spellbook. Johnathan Gilbert's journals say the secret of the spellbook lies with Giuseppe Salvatore."

Damon's eyes went wide, and the corner of Grayson's mouth twitched in a smile. "Now, I could try to puzzle out what that means on my own—though as Giuseppe was already dead when Johnathan wrote that entry, it could be difficult—or I could ask the man's own son for help."

"But that would only increase Sheila's debt to me," said Damon.

"Enough for her to be willing to open the tomb. Or at least to allow it to be opened, if you already have another witch lined up to do the job."

"Which brings up another question—why do _you_ want it open in the first place?"

"With the exceptions of you and your brother, I thought Mystic Falls' Civil War era vampires were all dead. Some people might be content with the knowledge that they're trapped in a mystical holding cell, but not me. I'll help you get the tomb open if you swear you'll leave town with Katherine and let me stake the other twenty-six. What's more, I'll help you lie low until the comet if you promise not to kill any of the citizens of Mystic Falls while you're here."

"I assume 'lying low' includes staying away from Elena," said Damon.

"That'll be up to her," said Grayson. "It could be useful to have you around in case someone who does want to hurt her shows up while you're in town."

X

The first things Elena became aware of were the quiet voices of her mom and aunt. Her mom was asking something about Jeremy, and Jenna was saying that he was up in his room, blasting his music as usual; they didn't have to worry about him.

She opened her eyes groggily, realizing as she did that she was lying on the couch in the living room with a blanket draped over her. The two older women were sitting across from her, one on the loveseat, the other on the ottoman. As soon as they saw she was awake, they both leaned towards her, their faces full of concern.

"How are you feeling?" asked Miranda.

"I'm okay, I think," Elena mumbled. She frowned, moving her tongue around against the backs of her teeth. Why did her mouth taste so coppery? The memories started coming back to her, driving that strange detail from her thoughts. She and Bonnie had walked in on what looked like a thoroughly non-Geneva Convention approved interrogation. Zach Salvatore had tried to shoot Damon with a crossbow, and she had thrown herself in the way. She sat up hastily, suddenly much more alert. "What about Damon? Is he—?"

"He's fine," said Miranda, though it looked like it pained her to say it.

Elena sagged with relief. For all she'd known, Zach might've tried again after missing the first time. Why on earth had he been trying to kill his own nephew, anyway?

But then, Zach hadn't been the only one trying to kill him.

"Why would you risk your life to save him like that?" said Jenna, wearing the same pained expression as her sister.

"It wasn't really a plan," said Elena. "But he's my friend." _My friend I should have been kissing right about now at the dance at Whitmore,_ she added mentally. "I couldn't just let him die. What were you and Dad and Bonnie's grandma doing there?"

"What were _you_ doing there?" said Miranda. Her voice was gentle, but there was a hint of sternness in it. "We told you to stay away from him."

"You wouldn't tell me why," said Elena. "And I _still_ don't see why. He's funny and interesting and he needed a friend and he was gonna take me _swing dancing_ tonight. Why were you so worried about me spending time with someone like that? Is he like a mobster or something? Are you and Dad and Bonnie's grandma and Zach mobsters or something? What was going on over there? Why did Dad stab him with a poker? Why did Zach try to shoot him?"

"Sweetheart, calm down," said Miranda, extending a hand towards Elena, but Elena was too agitated now to appreciate it.

"I can't calm down, Mom!" she cried, standing up and striding around the living room, running her fingers through the hair Bonnie had so carefully arranged for the swing ball. "Just tell me what the heck I walked in on."

Miranda sighed. "The reason your father and I didn't want you spending time with Damon Salvatore…is that he's a vampire."

Elena stared blankly at her mom, then at her aunt. A grin spread across her face as she waited for one of them to say "Just kidding!" and start the real explanation. When neither of them did, her grin slipped a little. "You _are_ joking, aren't you? Vampires aren't real."

They both continued to look at her gravely. "You've learned about the Battle of Willow Creek in school, haven't you?" said Miranda.

"Yeah…," said Elena, baffled by the subject change.

"The school's version isn't entirely accurate," said Jenna.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the part about it being one of the last battles of the war is correct," said Miranda, "but it was more than that. While the soldiers were fighting outside of town, a council made up Mystic Falls' founders was rounding up the vampires that had been plaguing the town for the last several months. They trapped them inside Fell's Church and burned it to the ground, killing them. But before they put her in the church, a vampire named Katherine Pierce turned two Mystic Falls boys: Damon and his brother Stefan."

Elena sank back onto the couch, her knees no longer able to support her weight. "Katherine Pierce?" she repeated faintly. "That's the girl Damon said died in a fire. The girl who could be my twin."

"What?" said Miranda sharply. When Elena blinked at her in confusion, her expression softened again. "Never mind. We were going to tell you about all of this when you turned eighteen."

"Why did you wait so long with me?" said Jenna.

"You left Mystic Falls, and it had been years since anything happened. Our parents thought you would be happier not knowing. You were—"

"—Their baby," Jenna finished, rolling her eyes. "I know."

"Oh my god," said Elena, who had been watching this exchange but not really focusing on it. "It's true. All of it. It's really true. He said he knew every dance invented since the Civil War, and that he's been a master of screwing with little brothers since the turn of the century—I guess he didn't mean this one—, and there was that second the first night I met him when I got this weird feeling that he was really dangerous, but then he was back to normal and I didn't think about it again." Her eyes widened and she stared at her mom. "Zach shot me!" she cried, as if realizing it for the first time. She reached around to feel the spot the crossbow bolt had hit on her back, but it was awkward and she couldn't seem to find anything but smooth skin. "I know he shot me! What happened? How am I okay?"

"You weren't," said Miranda, her eyes bright with tears. "The crossbow bolt punctured one of your lungs, and you were going into shock."

"But I can't find a wound," Elena protested, finally giving up attempting to. "I feel completely fine."

"That's because Damon helped you."

"Helped me?"

"A vampire's blood can heal almost any wound. He made you drink some of his."

Jenna turned away, looking queasy.

"He…made me drink his blood?" said Elena. Well at least that explained the coppery taste in her mouth. She waited for this revelation to turn her stomach, but it didn't. But then something else occurred to her. "Wait, does that mean I'm gonna be a vampire now?" she asked, going straight into panic mode.

"No!" said Miranda and Jenna loudly together.

"No," Miranda repeated, more calmly. "It doesn't work that way. By this time tomorrow, the blood will be out of your system and there won't be any chance of that happening."

"But it could?" Elena pressed, her voice still rather higher than usual.

"Only if you die," said Miranda reluctantly. "But that's not going to happen. You can even stay home from school—"

"What?" said Elena. "No way, I have two tests tomorrow! And cheer practice! I can't miss those." She froze, realizing that she had just prioritized the everyday matters of school and sports above the risk of death and vampirism. After the stress of the night's events, she couldn't help herself; she burst out laughing. Jenna followed suit, and even Miranda cracked a smile.

When Elena recovered, she said, "I've made it this far in high school without dying horribly; I think I can make it through one Friday. And actually, it'd probably be more hazardous to my health to tick Caroline off by missing practice than if I just went like normal."

"Okay," said Miranda, still smiling.

"Try to make sure you're not the one they're tossing in the air, though," added Jenna. "Just to be on the safe side."

"Deal," said Elena. Over the next few seconds, all three of them sobered, their smiles fading. "I think I'm gonna go to bed. There's just so much to process."

"And I should head back to Whitmore," said Jenna, standing up. "One more final, and I'll be back for the summer."

The phone rang then, and Miranda went to answer it. As she climbed the stairs, Elena listened to her mom's half of what sounded like a conversation with her dad about arranging a ride home from the boarding house. She was about to go into her room when Miranda poked her head into the hall, still clutching the cordless phone. "Are you and Jeremy going to be okay here if Jenna takes me to pick up your dad?" she asked.

"Yeah, we'll be fine," said Elena. She just wanted to sleep.

X

Though nothing about the evening had been physically taxing—well, unless you counted punching Zach out—, Grayson felt exhausted by the time he and Miranda got back home. The drive had been silent. He would've driven home himself, but it had occurred to him that after two glasses of bourbon, it probably wouldn't be wise to risk it.

Only when they were inside the house did Miranda begin with her questions. "What happened?" she asked.

"I made a deal with him." They headed to the kitchen, where Grayson poured a tall glass of water. He had nine appointments tomorrow; he couldn't afford a hangover.

"What kind of deal?"

"The vampires from eighteen sixty-five didn't die in Fell's Church like our ancestors thought."

"What?" said Miranda, aghast.

"They're in a tomb underneath what's left of the church. They've been sealed there ever since it burned down. Damon wants to open it to get Katherine Pierce out."

"Grayson," said Miranda urgently, "Katherine Pierce is—"

"Another Petrova doppelgänger," said Grayson heavily. "I know."

"She could be dangerous to Elena!" said Miranda. "You're not really going to let her go free, are you?"

"Of course not," said Grayson. "I have no intention of letting her out of that tomb alive. Damon is willing to cooperate with us until it's time to open the tomb. He can protect Elena better than we can, and he agreed to not kill anyone in Mystic Falls as long as we get it open for him. Then we can get rid of all the vampires inside along with the only one who knows Elena exists all at once."

"There are so many ways this could go wrong," said Miranda. "If he finds out you plan to double-cross him—"

"He won't," said Grayson.

X

After helping himself to a third glass of bourbon, Damon cleaned off the poker Grayson had speared him with and replaced it in the set by the fireplace, then worked on starting a fire while he went over his conversation with Grayson in his head. The man was a fool if he actually believed Damon would comply with his terms, though it had been nice of him not to ban him from seeing Elena. If playing along made it easier to get the tomb open, then play along he would. No killing, but that was already a given if he wanted to avoid suspicion anyway—he would still feed as much as he wanted. And as for leaving town with Katherine once she was free, well, that would be up to her, just like he'd always planned.

Once a decent blaze was going, he moved to clean up the small streaks of blood the crossbow bolt had left on the floor before throwing the bolt into the fire. Next, he walked over to where the crossbow itself had landed. He had picked it up and was about to give it the same treatment as its ammo when he noticed a drop of red on the floor. It seemed Grayson had drawn blood with that punch. Damon's lips curled in a smile as the veins crept over his cheeks. He strained his senses, and his smirk widened when he caught the distant sound of a nervous heartbeat. It was coming from somewhere in the basement.

"I know you're still here, Zach," he said in a loud singsong voice as he strode into the kitchen and pulled the cellar door open. "You should've run while you had the chance, but if you show yourself now, I won't make it hurt as much."

At the bottom of the stairs, something shiny on the floor caught his eye. He bent down and picked it up. It was the head of a key—Zach's car key. All that was left of the blade was a twisted stump a couple of millimeters long. "Oh, so you did try to run first," he said. "What'd you do, bust off the key in the ignition?" He tossed the broken key over his shoulder and kept walking towards that heartbeat, which, he was pleased to note, was thudding steadily faster as he drew closer to it.

He stopped in front of a broad metal door with a small, barred, rectangular window level with his head. "Let's see what's behind door number one." He reached for the latch, but as soon as his skin made contact with it, pain seared across it. He withdrew his hand sharply, cursing, but the vervain burns were already healing. "Good trick, Zach," he said. "Won't stop me from getting in, though." He placed his hands against the door and pushed, testing its strength. His smile returned. He took one step back, then kicked the door as hard as he could. It crashed open, the frame on the lock side in ruins.

He walked inside. The room was completely dark except for the dim light spilling in from the hallway, but if Zach thought that was his advantage, then he was even dumber than the rest of his actions today suggested. The only real advantage he had in here was that the poor acoustics of the stone room confused the direction of the sound of his heart pounding.

"You know, I told the esteemed Dr. Gilbert that I wouldn't be killing any Mystic Falls citizens while I was here," said Damon. "But somehow I don't think it'll be a deal-breaker when he finds out I made an exception for the man who nearly killed his daughter."

Damon heard movement behind him, but he pretended not to notice until the quiet footsteps were less than a yard away. Then he spun around, catching the arm swinging towards him by the wrist. "Nice try," he said, tightening his grip until the bones creaked and Zach cried out in pain. Something fell out of his hand. Damon looked down at the floor and saw a syringe rolling around on the stone. "Ooh, a vervain syringe. I guess your plan wasn't that bad after all," he said. "And I'm impressed. This took guts. Too bad I'm going to rip them out." He wrapped his other hand around Zach's throat and slammed him against the wall.

"Why did you have to come back here?" Zach choked out. He looked desperate and broken, and he wasn't even fighting anymore.

"Believe it or not, it _wasn't_ to shatter your peace of mind," said Damon. "That was just a bonus."

"Was it for that girl?" said Zach. "Elena Gilbert?"

"Another bonus," said Damon.

"You'll only bring her misery, Damon," said Zach. "You're not capable of anything else."

"She would've died tonight if it wasn't for me. Just because misery is the only thing I've ever brought _you_…."

"She wouldn't have been here at all if it wasn't for you!" said Zach. "And you're the one I was aiming for!"

"Which brings us right back around to that revenge I was about to get."

"Let him go, Damon."

Damon and Zach both looked around at the doorway. "Stefan!" said Damon in a falsely welcoming tone. "I was wondering how long it would take you to get here after that phone call. You're just in time. I was about to start removing Zach's organs one by one."

"I said let him go!" Stefan roared, lunging across the cell at Damon, knocking him away from Zach. "Zach, get out of here!"

It only took a second for Damon to get the upper hand, but Zach was already fleeing the room. Damon threw Stefan away from him entirely, sending him crashing hard into another wall. "I see I was right," he said, straightening up. "You _are_ still on the bunny diet. You're not strong enough to fight me."

"Maybe not," said Stefan. "But I'm strong enough to protect Zach."

"Why bother?" said Damon, rolling his eyes. "The guy hates you just as much as he hates me."

"He's _family_, Damon!"

"Pfft. He's our half-nephew five generations down," said Damon. "Considering that you're the one who killed our _father_, you're in no position to cast stones when it comes to dealing with human family members. Zach tried to kill me first; I'm only taking my turn. Just like with Joseph. I'm sure you remember how your attempts to protect _him_ worked out."

"So is this really about revenge, or are you just doing it to get to me?" said Stefan.

"You honestly think the two are mutually exclusive?" Damon sneered.

The muscles in Stefan's face tightened. "Right. Eternity of misery. How could I have forgotten."

"Don't look so grim, Stefan. You know how this works with us." He stepped forward and clapped Stefan on the shoulder. "But if it means that much to you, I'll lay off Zach for…a week. Convince me he deserves to live without pulling the family card by then and I might reconsider. Provided he doesn't try anything stupid."

* * *

The title is one of my favorite Bible verses. Go check it out. I thought it summed up Damon and Elena's actions regarding each other rather nicely. Anyway. Originally, I was going to have Sheila accidentally hit Elena with the brain whammy when Elena ran between her and Damon, but the thought that Sheila would make a mistake like that with her spell after practicing magic for as long as she has didn't really make sense. Then I remembered Zach, and it all came together. So overall, now we have a tenuous alliance between Damon and the Gilberts, Elena and Bonnie know a lot more than they did earlier that day, and all is not well in casa Salvatore. Stefan's back, so that should be fun. I know there wasn't much of Elena in this one, but the next chapter will make up for that. How's she going to react to all this new information once she's had some time to process it?

P.S. You reviewers are crazy awesome. 100+ reviews after just four chapters? I love you guys.


	6. The Good Brother

Hey guys, I'm back! August was a very crazy month for me. There was my grandma's funeral, and then my purse getting stolen on my last day of work (the cop caught the guy and I got most of my stuff back—including the writing notebook in which I had half of this chapter written, but at that point not yet typed), then painting furniture (which turned out really cute but took up the entire kitchen in my apartment for four days, in the same week as my new flatmates moved in), and then starting as a Graduate Instructor teaching English 1010 to the freshmen (with no prior teaching experience, so that was kinda scary, but it's been really good so far, though the university isn't going to pay me until freaking October), and the crazy mountain of readings my two graduate professors are giving me on a regular basis now...yeah, busy month. When I had time to write, I was mostly working on "All This Time" with Anglcdmn (we just posted two chapters in a row, and we're into the resolution of the whole story now, so you guys should totally check it out over on her profile if you haven't already been reading). But after all that, I've finally got another chapter of this one for you! Enjoy!

Many thanks again to my good buddy and beta, Anglcdmn. Y'all should go read her stuff. She took "Cheap Guitars" down for a while, but now it's back!

* * *

Elena's night was not the restful one she'd hoped for. She spent much of it tossing and turning, plagued with nervous energy, a headache, and thoughts that refused to stop racing. By morning, she'd gotten at best two or three hours of actual sleep, and as she dragged herself through getting ready for the day, she wished she'd taken her mom up on the offer to write her a note for school. It would be easier to make up her two tests the following week than to recover from bombing them with only two more weeks left in the school year. The only thing that sustained her was her urgent need to talk to Bonnie about the events of the previous night, and she simply could not wait until Bonnie was home from school for that.

When she got downstairs (exhausted though she was, she still managed to beat Jeremy), her mom was waiting for her in the kitchen. "Good morning, sweetie," she said.

Elena groaned and let her head thud down on the table beside her cereal bowl.

"I have something for you," Miranda went on.

Elena lifted her head reluctantly and saw that her mom was holding out a silver charm bracelet to her. "Isn't that yours?" she said, frowning.

"I want you to have it," said Miranda. "I put vervain in the heart charm."

"What's vervain?" said Elena, accepting the bracelet and clasping it onto her left wrist.

"It's an herb that protects you from a vampire's mind control. I've been putting it in the tea the last few days, but I'd rather you were wearing some at all times, just in case."

Elena nodded and reached for the milk carton. "He never did any mind control on me, you know," she said quietly.

"I know," said Miranda. "But it doesn't mean we can trust other vampires not to."

"Are there more of them in town?" said Elena with wide eyes.

"A few," said Miranda, "but they're trapped for now. Damon is going to help your dad get rid of them."

Elena raised an eyebrow. "Is that why nobody's said anything else to me about staying away from him? You guys formed an alliance?"

"Yeah," said Miranda, though it was obvious she wasn't thrilled about it.

"So why did he agree to help Dad kill a bunch of his own kind? Does that make him a good vampire?"

"Not quite. The other vampires are the ones we all thought burned to death in Fell's Church."

"But," said Elena, her brow furrowing, "but one of those vampires is Katherine Pierce."

Miranda nodded.

"Then she's alive?" said Elena.

"She's the reason Damon is willing to help us kill the rest."

Elena dropped her spoon into her half-finished cereal and pushed the bowl away. She suddenly didn't have much of an appetite. "Can you drive Jeremy to school?" she asked. "I want to get there early to study some more."

"Sure," said Miranda.

Elena got up and gathered her stuff, but her mom caught her on the way out the door and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Drive safe," she said, "and be careful at cheer practice."

"I will, Mom," said Elena with a tired smile, kissing her back.

X

Bonnie was already there waiting for her when Elena arrived at the high school. They shared a glance that was laden with meaning, then headed inside to their lockers.

"Grams swore you'd be okay," said Bonnie in a low voice, making sure none of the small clusters of chattering students around them was listening in, "but it's good to see that with my own eyes."

Elena gave a tremulous smile and wrapped her arms around Bonnie. Bonnie hugged her back tightly. "What happened after I passed out?" Elena asked when they pulled apart. "Mom only said that Damon used…" Here she, too, paused to check for eavesdroppers. "…That he used his blood to heal me."

"I don't think I've ever been more scared in my life than when I watched you collapse," said Bonnie with a haunted expression. "After that, your dad ran over and punched out Zach Salvatore for shooting you."

"Serves him right," Elena muttered. "Then what happened?"

"When we looked back at Damon, he was holding you, and his face changed." Bonnie shuddered.

"What do you mean?" said Elena.

"The whites of his eyes turned red—like, blood-red—and he had all these dark veins going down from his eyelids, and fangs—we all thought he was going to bite you."

Elena frowned. She was having just as much trouble imagining Damon's face changing in the monstrous way Bonnie described as she was imagining he would hurt her.

"As soon as he did that, Grams hit him with a spell to stop him," Bonnie went on, but Elena interrupted her.

"Wait, what?" she said. "A spell?"

"Oh, right," said Bonnie. "I guess your mom didn't tell you that part. So, it turns out that everyone on my mom's side of the family…we're witches. It goes all the way back to Salem and beyond, and it's this whole connection to the earth and nature deal that I don't really understand yet, and…is that okay?"

"Wow," said Elena.

"I know," said Bonnie, grinning. "Do you want me to keep going, or do you need more time to process?"

"I feel like it's going to take me all summer to process all of this," said Elena dryly. "But I still want to know what happened."

"Okay," said Bonnie. "Well, Grams did that spell on Damon because she thought he was going to attack you, but he still wouldn't let go of you. He said he was just trying to help you. Grams and your dad argued with him—your dad wanted to take you to the hospital, but Damon said there wasn't time, and in the end your mom just told Damon to save you. He bit open his wrist and held it to your mouth, and I watched your wound heal in seconds. Then your mom took you home, Grams took me home, and your dad stayed to talk to Damon."

Elena digested all of this in silence. She wished she could've seen it for herself. It was all so incredible that even though she knew Bonnie, her mom, and her aunt had all told her the truth, it was difficult to comprehend it as more than mere words without having witnessed much of it herself.

"So what does it mean for you that you're a witch?" she said eventually, turning and starting to do her locker combination.

"Not much right now," said Bonnie, copying Elena's actions. "Grams said I'm just barely starting to come into my powers, but she's going to help me get the hang of them. I'm planning on spending a lot of time with her this summer."

"Are you still going to lifeguard at the pool?"

"Yeah," said Bonnie. "That'll only be like twenty hours a week, and witch or not, I have to do _something_ to earn my own money now that I'm over sixteen and Dad decided that giving me allowance 'wasn't doing enough to teach me responsibility'." She rolled her eyes as she said this last bit, and Elena laughed.

"Yeah, I remember that. I'm just glad my parents haven't had the same idea. Not yet, at least." She pulled out the books she needed and shut her locker door again. "Cram session before first period?" she asked, holding up her history book.

Bonnie groaned, and they both headed for Tanner's classroom.

Distracted as they were, they didn't make much headway with studying before class. Caroline arrived at three minutes to the tardy bell and headed straight for Elena. "So," she said with an expectant grin, "I was promised details."

"Uh," said Elena, "he stood me up."

"Oh," said Caroline, her grin melting into a look of confused disappointment.

"Yeah," said Elena. She felt a small twinge of guilt for lying to her friend, but it barely registered against the hurricane of confused emotions she'd fighting since the previous night. Caroline moved away and took her seat, still looking vaguely pouty.

X

Six and a half days left to live. Six and a half days left to live. The thought kept repeating in Zach's head. There as no way a vampire as ruthless as Damon would show mercy after an attempt on his life. The week-long grace period was already Zach's bet-case scenario. And now he wouldn't even be able to slip quietly out of town, because after his little discussion with Stefan in the cellar last night, Damon had come to find Zach and inform him that any attempt to flee would be the last thing he ever did. He was trapped.

A knock on his door pulled him out of these unpleasant thoughts. "Come in," he said warily. He knew that Damon wouldn't wait for permission anyway, but it was best to give it. Thankfully, though, it was Stefan who walked through the door. "What do you want, Uncle Stefan?" Zach asked.

"I just wanted to see how you were doing," said Stefan.

"Your brother is going to kill me in six and a half days. How do you think?"

"He won't," said Stefan. "I won't let him."

"And how exactly do you plan to stop him?" said Zach, getting to his feet. "I know what happened to my grandfather. You were here when Uncle Damon killed him. Did you give him the same empty reassurances you just gave me?"

Stefan's brow furrowed and his lips pressed tightly together. His lack of response was not encouraging in the slightest.

X

Against all odds, the history test didn't seem to go as horribly as Elena thought it would. It was even kind of a relief to have something else to focus on for an hour. But the craziness was back in force as soon as she left Tanner's classroom, and with Bonnie headed to her own second period class on the other side of the building, she no longer had anything to ground her. Her head was so full of thoughts of vampires, witches, and hundred-and-forty-five-year-old secrets that she didn't even see Matt until she bonked right into him near her locker.

"Sorry," she said automatically. She was about to attempt a convincing smile and "How are you?" when Matt cut across her.

"I'm not in the mood right now, Elena," he said.

"What?" said Elena, bemused.

"I know you feel bad and you want to be friends, but I can't just flip a switch and go back to how things were before, like you seem to be doing," he said.

"Matt, I—" she began, but he interrupted her again.

"Just leave me alone," he said, and then he walked off.

Elena made a noise between a whimper and a groan and thudded her forehead against her locker. She hadn't even been trying to give Matt another "let's put this behind us and be friends again" speech! Now she was going to have Matt guilt on top of all the vampire insanity.

X

Damon withdrew his fangs from his victim's neck, reveling in the familiar rush of power that always accompanied fresh blood. The woman stared blankly at him. "Was that everything you needed?" she asked, a polite, vacant smile on her face.

"It'll do for now," said Damon. His wrist was halfway to his mouth when he hesitated. A wicked grin split his lips. "What's your name, sweetheart?" he said.

"Jeanine," said the woman.

"Well, Jeanine," said Damon, "As a matter of fact, there _is _something else I need you to do. As soon as you get back in your car, I want you to forget you ever met me. And about your neck, you should really get that wound looked at. Why don't you go see Dr. Gilbert in his office on Main Street?"

"Yeah," said Jeanine. "Yeah, I will. He'll know just what to do."

"That's right," said Damon. "Drive safe, now."

He watched her walk back to her car where she'd stopped it so she could see if the man lying in the middle of the road needed any help. He smirked as she started the engine and drove off. If Grayson Gilbert wanted Damon to behave and not kill anyone in Mystic Falls, then he would appreciate this opportunity to personally oversee the recovery of Damon's leftovers.

A small flock of ravens took flight from a tree at the bend where Jeanine's car had just disappeared from sight. Damon watched them, his smirk widening as another idea occurred to him.

X

The French test did not go as well as the history test. Elena felt she'd be lucky to have scraped a C on it. Her head was still pounding, and her temper was shortening as a result. Why hadn't Damon told her the truth about himself? What gave him the right to show up out of the blue and work his way into her life like that when he was really only in town to retrieve his long lost love? Why had he led her to believe that Katherine was dead?

So many questions swirled in her mind, with no answers to follow. Not once did it occur to her to feel afraid—she was too angry for that, and the idea of real live vampires was still too abstract in her mind to produce any fear.

The rest of the day was extremely fidgety, restless, and unsettled. Elena had never skipped class before in her life, but now she could barely suppress the urge to get in her car and drive straight to the boarding house to give Damon a piece of her mind, her last three periods be damned. The moment that tested her the worst was when, in the middle of a capture the flag game in sixth period gym class, she saw a large raven flutter over to perch on one of the light poles surrounding the soccer field. Maybe she was imagining things, but the raven looked like Edgar, and the way his head was angled, he looked like he was staring directly at her.

She didn't care if she was risking life and limb by skipping cheer practice; as soon as the final bell rang, she grabbed her stuff from her locker and headed straight for the parking lot, peeling out before anyone else had even exited the building.

X

When Elena reached the boarding house, she did not bother to knock, but pushed the door right open (it was really heavy, so she couldn't quite succeed in making it bang off the inside wall like she wanted to) and strode inside. "Damon!" she said loudly.

Before she could take so much as a step farther into the entrance hall or say another word, a figure appeared at the foot of the staircase down the corridor to her left, making her jump. It wasn't Damon, or even Zach; it was a young man, roughly the same height as Damon, but with a slightly larger build and lighter hair that was gelled so it stood up a full two inches off his head in messy spikes. He was staring at her exactly the same way Damon had when they first met on that deserted road last Friday—as though he couldn't believe his eyes.

"Katherine?" he said. Elena opened her mouth to correct him, but he didn't give her the chance. "You're alive?"

A staggering array of emotions flashed over his features, so quickly that Elena felt disoriented just watching him. In the space of about two seconds, he went from surprise to happiness to confusion to suspicion, and at last to anger. She had barely recognized that final emotion before he was rushing at her at an impossible speed, and the next thing she knew, he was slamming her against the door, which closed behind her with enough force to produce the shuddering bang she'd failed to achieve when she opened it.

The throbbing of the back of her skull where it made contact with the door and the pain of her throat where his hand clenched around it barely registered against the terror Elena felt as his livid face transformed before her. It was just like Bonnie had described. The whites of his green eyes had turned blood red, thick dark veins spiderwebbed down from the lower lids, and his lips peeled back to reveal a set of wickedly sharp fangs.

"If you've been alive this whole time, then why the hell did you abandon us for all these years? How could you turn me and Damon and then leave us like that?"

His words were starting to get lost in the ringing in Elena's ears. "Please," she croaked, trying to pry his fingers away from her throat, but even with both hands, she couldn't get so much as his pinky finger to budge even a millimeter. But just when dark spots were starting to pop across her vision, her attacker was ripped away from her and hurled across the entrance hall. He landed with a crash on the floor of the parlor.

Blood rushed back into Elena's brain so fast that she felt dizzy, but a pair of strong arms steadied her. Her vision clearing she looked up at the face of her rescuer. "Damon," she said hoarsely. But he wasn't looking at her. He was glaring daggers at the vampire he'd just thrown across the room, who was already back on his feet, looking, if possible, even more murderous than before. Elena gave a squeak of fear and clung to Damon, her previous anger at him forgotten.

"What is she doing here, Damon?" he demanded.

"You know one of the biggest signs of malnutrition in a vampire, little brother?" said Damon, his tone harsh and mocking. "Having senses so dull that you can't tell the difference between a human and a vampire even when you're _choking the life out of her_. Especially considering she just _walked through the door_ without an invitation from Zach."

"What are you talking about? Katherine is a vampire! You know that as well as I do!"

"I'm not Katherine!" said Elena loudly as she massaged her throat with her hand.

"Stefan," said Damon, "meet Elena Gilbert. A very _human_ native of Mystic Falls."

Stefan's vampiric features melted back into human ones, an expression of utter bewilderment on his face. "How is this possible?" he asked. He took a step forward as if to get a better look at her, and she automatically moved even closer to Damon.

"Your guess is as good as mine," said Damon. "Now, if you'll excuse us, I believe Elena wanted a word with me."

"I'm not going anywhere," said Stefan, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.

"Then I guess I'll have to make you," said Damon, stepping in front of Elena to face his brother squarely.

"She's human, and I'm not leaving you alone with her," said Stefan, standing his ground.

"Just go," said Elena. Her fear was draining away, and a bit of her anger was returning.

"I don't know what my brother said to you, Elena," said Stefan, fixing her with an earnest gaze that only annoyed her more, "but he's dangerous. You can't trust him."

"And I should trust _you_?" she said incredulously. "I met you ten seconds ago and you tried to strangle me! I think I'll take my chances with Damon, thanks."

"You heard the lady," said Damon, sounding amused. "Now run along. I'm sure this is cutting into valuable hair-styling, Bambi-killing, self-flagellation time." He wiggled his fingers at Stefan in a shooing gesture.

"Just remember what I said," Stefan muttered, his eyes still on Elena. Then, reluctantly, he walked away.

Damon turned to face Elena, and she opened her mouth to speak, but he held a finger to his lips, glancing over at the place where Stefan had disappeared from view. She looked around at the spot too, then back to Damon, slightly perplexed, but after a few seconds, he lowered his finger and looked at her again. "Okay," he said, "what can I do for you, Elena?"

She shifted awkwardly where she stood. "I'm told I owe you my life," she said. "Twice now, I guess."

"You saved mine first," said Damon seriously. He gave her a funny look. "Why did you do it?"

"Zach was going to kill you, and I was the only one who saw him," said Elena simply.

"But you could've died," Damon insisted. "Why would you risk it?"

"Well, that wasn't exactly the plan," said Elena. "I was just going to get to you first and then, I don't know, push you out of the way, or something. Either way, here we both are." She felt flustered, and it was making her angrier. She wasn't about to admit that she'd heedlessly risked her life for him because she cared about him more than anyone else she'd ever known for just one week. But did she even still feel that way now that she knew the truth? He'd saved her life, yes, but everything she'd thought she knew about him before was just part of a façade.

"Why didn't you tell me what you are?" she said. "Why did you make me think Katherine Pierce was dead and not the reason you're in Mystic Falls?"

"I never said she was dead," said Damon, raising an eyebrow. "I only said she didn't make it out of the fire, which is true. And it's not my fault you thought I meant 'asocial' when I said 'anti-social'. Or that you didn't listen to your parents when they warned you about me."

"If you really wanted to be my friend, then you owed me the truth!" said Elena. "Not misleading suggestions and sneaky little word games."

"Excuse me?" said Damon, his expression hard as flint. "Do you go around spilling your darkest secrets to brand new acquaintances?"

She opened her mouth indignantly, but had no words for a retort.

"I didn't think so," he said in a biting tone. "So I didn't attach a 'by the way, I'm a blood-sucking fiend' disclaimer when I introduced myself; I still gave you _several_ opportunities to walk away. _You_ chose not to take them. I didn't owe you _anything_. In fact, you know what my first instinct was the night we met? Well, my second instinct, actually, because my first would've been to sink my fangs into your neck."

Elena swallowed. As angry as she was, she was also beginning to appreciate that Damon was just as dangerous as his brother. "What was it?"

"I was going to compel you to forget meeting me," he said. "And I really should've done it, especially after you told me you're a Gilbert, because your dad and Sheila Bennett are now making my life un_believably_ complicated. But no! You had to be all intriguing and make me lose sight of my priorities."

He looked so annoyed that she couldn't help the burst of laughter that escaped her. This was a mistake. His eyes narrowed and he stalked towards her until his face was mere inches from hers. "You want to know what I was even doing out there that night?"

"What?" she said, hating the way her voice quivered, the way her pulse hammered in her ears, the way it was all she could do to not take a step backward.

"I was lying in wait for some hapless human to stumble into my path so I could _feed_ on them," he said, his voice low. "Because that's what I do."

"Then why didn't you do that to me?" she asked.

"Because, by some freak coincidence, you look and sound _exactly_ like Katherine, and it caught me off-guard," he said, his eyes flaring on the last word.

"Would I still be alive right now if I didn't?"

"I don't know, Elena." His expression was unreadable, but somehow what she saw in it made the fear drain out of her.

"Well, it doesn't seem to be throwing you off anymore, so why not attack me now?" she said, standing up straighter. In the absence of her fear, her anger was coming back in such force that she felt like she might cry.

Shock flashed briefly over his face before it hardened again. She didn't move a muscle, not even when his hands locked in an iron grip around her arms just above the elbows. As she watched, veins darkened and erupted on the skin beneath his eyes, the whites slowly turned red, and his eyeteeth lengthened into razor-sharp fangs. He leaned even closer, and she could feel his breath on the side of her face, then on her neck. She expected to feel the sharp sting of those fangs any second, and she shut her eyes tight. But the pain never came. Instead, she heard his voice in her ear. "_Don't_ tempt me."

The next second, he was standing five feet away from her, facing the other way. Elena let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"Yes, I did want to be your friend," he said, "but I knew there wasn't a chance in hell that you'd still want anything to do with me after you learned the truth. Since the game is up now, there's the door. Unless there was something else you wanted to talk about?"

Elena stared at his back. Without taking her eyes off him, she reached for the door handle and pulled it open, then slipped outside and, after backing to the edge of the porch, turned around and sprinted to her car, her heart hammering wildly.

X

After being banished from the entrance hall by his brother and the impossible girl, Stefan went straight up to Zach's room. This time, he barged right in without knocking. Zach had been working at his desk inside the room and jumped to his feet at Stefan's entrance.

"I know this house doesn't belong to me," he said in as angry a tone as he dared, "but since I do live here, I would appreciate it if you respected my privacy, even if Uncle Damon doesn't."

Ignoring this, Stefan said, "Can you explain to me how it's possible that there's a human teenage girl downstairs who looks just like the vampire who turned Damon and me in 1865?"

"What are you talking about?" said Zach, throwing his hands up in the air.

"Elena Gilbert, Zach," said Stefan. "She looks _exactly_ like Katherine Pierce."

"I don't know anything about that," said Zach. "She's just a girl. I've known her parents since before she was born. Though lately I sort of wish I'd never met them."

"Why?" said Stefan. "What do you mean?"

"Grayson and Miranda were here last night, interrogating Damon for information about why he's back in Mystic Falls—"

"Wait, they know what he is?" Stefan interrupted.

"They know that and pretty much everything else! And they do _not_ take threats to their family kindly."

"What did Damon do to them?" said Stefan anxiously.

"Apparently nothing," said Zach. "I'm the one in their black books now, not him."

"How come?"

"Because when I tried to fire a crossbow bolt through Damon's heart, Elena jumped in the way, and it hit her instead."

"Then how is she still alive?"

"Well I'm not sure, because Grayson knocked me out at that point, but I'm guessing it's because Damon healed her." Zach paused and closed his eyes. "So she is okay, then?"

"Yeah," said Stefan. He didn't mention that she would probably have some handprint-shaped bruises around her neck in a few hours. He shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other at the thought. "She's fine."

"Thank God," said Zach.

"What does Damon want with her?" said Stefan.

"Why would you think Damon has told me his plans about anything?" said Zach, firing up again. "He's going to _kill_ me in six days; we aren't exactly in each other's confidence."

"I told you, I'm not going to let him kill you!"

"Save it," Zach spat. "You're just as powerless against him as I am. The only difference is that for me it's not a _choice_."

X

Zach's words rang in Stefan's head long after he left his room. His nephew was right; being powerless against Damon _was_ a choice for him. He'd been alternating between appeasement and avoidance with Damon for the better part of a hundred years, but it hadn't deterred Damon from taking every opportunity to make him miserable. Maybe it _was _time he tried a more offensive strategy. He was no match for Damon physically, but there were ways to get around that.

But before he tried anything against Damon, he had to do whatever he could to make sure there would be no collateral damage. Elena Gilbert was in danger as long as she was on Damon's radar. He was probably drawn to her because she looked like Katherine. Or maybe he'd deliberately searched her out because of it. Either way, her parents were in way over their heads if they thought they could go up against him without help. So that would be Stefan's first stop.

It was easy enough to find Grayson Gilbert's office. All he had to do was ask the first person he saw in town, and they pointed him straight to it. As he approached the indicated building, he frowned a little. If he wasn't mistaken, it was an updated and remodeled version of the same building where Miss Pearl and her daughter Annabelle had kept their apothecary.

He walked inside. A kind-faced woman sat behind a desk in the reception area, and she looked up as he entered. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, "I'm looking for Dr. Gilbert."

She frowned. "I think he was just about to leave. Did you have an appointment?"

"No, no," said Stefan, "I just needed to speak with him for a moment."

"Oh, well, he's just through there," she said, pointing to a door that led deeper into the building.

"Thank you," said Stefan, and he headed on back.

When he entered Grayson's actual office, he found the man sorting documents into an open briefcase on his desk. He looked up, and Stefan was startled by his resemblance to Johnathan Gilbert. Still just a normal family resemblance, though—nothing like his daughter and Katherine.

"Hello," said Grayson politely, "did you have—"

"No, I don't have an appointment," said Stefan. "Dr. Gilbert, my name is Stefan Salvatore."

Grayson's entire demeanor changed in an instant. His whole body tensed up, his expression now one of alarm and anger. In quick movements, he reached under his desk and came back up with a loaded crossbow, which he pointed at Stefan's heart. Maybe he'd underestimated this guy's ability to go toe-to-toe with his brother after all. He couldn't even smell so much as a trace of fear off him.

Stefan raised his hands in surrender. "I didn't come here to hurt you," he said quickly.

"Yeah, because I'm going to take your word for it," said Grayson dryly. "I got your brother's message. The girl's fine, but I'd appreciate it if he refrained from doing that in future. This is an interesting development, though. Zach said you and Damon weren't working together."

"I'm not working with Damon, I came here to stop him!" said Stefan, feeling indignant.

"Well then I'm afraid we have a problem," said Grayson, "because I already made a deal with Damon that serves both our purposes, so if you're looking for someone to help you sabotage him, I'm not your man. It's nice to know you're not the ace up _his_ sleeve, though, so thank you for that."

"I don't know what Damon's planning, Dr. Gilbert, but I do know that wherever he goes, death and destruction always follow."

"I'm well aware of his track record," said Grayson. "And I'm also aware of yours. I wouldn't trust Damon as far as I could throw him, but at least he didn't swagger into town pretending to be the good guy. Now, you might want to leave this office before my trigger finger gets tired. It might seize up."

"Please, Dr. Gilbert, you have to listen to me!" said Stefan urgently. "I think Damon might be planning something to do with your daughter."

Grayson pulled the trigger. At such close range, Stefan didn't have time to react, and the crossbow bolt struck him about an inch and a half below his left collarbone. He yelled in pain and surprise and fell to his knees, his right hand flying to the few inches of wood protruding from the wound.

"That was a warning, Stefan," said Grayson. "I shot you between your first and second ribs. Your heart is behind ribs two through six." He spoke in a calm, clinical voice. Stefan stared up at him in horror, hissing the air through his teeth as he pulled the bolt back out centimeter by centimeter.

"The next bolt goes between three and four," Grayson continued, and he'd already reloaded the crossbow and taken aim. "I witnessed Damon save my daughter's life while under threat of torture and death himself. What have you done that I should take your side over his?"

X

"So I met Damon's brother today," said Elena.

_"Based on your tone, I already know I'm not going to like this," _said Bonnie.

"He thought I was Katherine and promptly tried to strangle me," said Elena. She switched her phone to her other ear and stretched out on her bed.

_"Sounds like being someone's double is getting really inconvenient."_

"Tell me about it. Damon got there in time to pull him off, but I've got a huge goose egg on the back of my head and I'm probably gonna have to wear scarves until the end of the school year."

_"Maybe I can convince Grams to teach me the spell she was using against Damon, and then I can go kick his brother's butt for you."_

Elena laughed, then winced and gingerly touched the still darkening bruises on her neck. "I think I'll probably be avoiding all three Salvatores from now on."

_"Why?" _said Bonnie. _"What did Damon do?"_

"It's all just really complicated," Elena sighed. "Maybe after finals are over and I have a chance to think…."

_"Yeah."_

"Well," said Elena, stifling a yawn. "I should get ready for bed. I missed today's practice—"

_"Yeah, and Caroline was _not_ happy about that."_

"I figured. So I have to be there bright and early for tomorrow."

_"Okay," _said Bonnie_, "I'll see you then. I love you!"_

"Love you too, Bonnie," said Elena. "Goodnight."

_"Goodnight."_

They hung up, and Elena slid off her bed, grabbed her pajamas off her dresser, and headed into the bathroom. Jeremy was just closing the door on the way back to his room when she entered. "Goodnight, Jer!" she called.

"G'night, Elena," he called back.

It took her about five minutes to do everything she needed. She pulled the door open, rubbing her eyes as she walked back into her room. When she dropped her hand, she jumped and barely managed not to scream. Damon was standing just inside her window, his back to her, his hand braced against the wall.

"What the hell are you doing here, Damon?" she hissed, quickly closing the bathroom door.

He turned around and eyed her up and down. "Snoopy and Woodstock," he said. "Good choice."

Elena stared at him in utter confusion for a second before realizing he was talking about her cartoon print pajama shorts. This did nothing to cool her rising temper. "What are you doing here?" she repeated, as loudly as she could without risking anyone else in the house hearing.

"I just needed to say one thing to you," he said, holding his hands up in front of him and walking a couple of steps closer. "After that, you'll never see me again if you don't want to."

Elena folded her arms. "Fine," she said.

He looked her in the eyes. "Look, I don't know if you'd still be alive if you didn't look like her," he said quietly. "But just for that, I'm glad you do. I'm glad I didn't attack you that night, and no matter how much trouble it's getting me into now, I'm glad I didn't compel you to forget. I had a lot of fun with you this week, so…thank you."

Elena was at a loss for how to react. "You're welcome," she said automatically.

He was standing very close to her now. "Good night, Elena," he said. He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. Then there was a gust of wind and a slight rushing sound, and he was gone.

* * *

Stefan did not have a very good day, did he? Grayson is pretty much my favorite. And yeah, Damon's kind of going into self-destruct mode a bit, with pushing Grayson's buttons by sending in his "leftovers" and scaring the crap out of Elena. Hopefully he'll get over it.


End file.
